2026-06-14 · Rick Rohrig
Run It Yourself, or Let Me Run It
Two honest ways to live on the decentralized web — let me run it for you, or run it yourself. Here's how I think about the choice, from a managed Home Port to your own bare-metal server.
The choice isn't really "self-host or not"
When someone asks whether they should self-host, they're usually asking a quieter question underneath it: who do I want carrying the boring, relentless burden of keeping it running — the uptime, the updates, the backups, the endless upkeep? What you actually get is the same either way: your own place on the open social web. I went to some lengths to prove that in You Can Take It With You — the same platform runs hosted for you or on a plain Linux box, byte for byte. So this was never a decision about lock-in. It's a decision about who carries the operational weight, and there are a few good answers.
The easy default: a managed Home Port
If you don't have a reason to do otherwise, start here. homeport.social is a managed Personal Data Server — your home port on the decentralized web. You get one handle that works across both great open networks at once — the fediverse (ActivityPub) and the ATmosphere (AT Protocol) — a place to post your microblog, and a place to post your video. All of it hosted, maintained, and kept online for you. You sign up, you're on the network in minutes, and you never have to think about a server.
Make it your own: white-label
Prefer your own brand to a homeport.social handle? There's a plan for that: a completely white-labeled instance — your name, your domain, your community — still fully managed end to end. Your front door; mine to keep running. Same engine underneath, none of the operational work, and nothing on it says "homeport" unless you want it to.
Managed, on your own infrastructure
Maybe you don't want it on our infrastructure at all — a region you have to stay inside, a provider you already trust, hardware you own. Also completely fine. I'll run your instance wherever you choose: any cloud (AWS, Google Cloud, Hetzner, Fly, an EU-based host) or bare-metal servers you rack yourself. You hold the account, the hardware, and the data; I carry the operational load — deploys, updates, monitoring, the upkeep. Your infrastructure and your principles, without the second job.
Or run it yourself
Sometimes you want the opposite of hands-off: total control. Your data on hardware you can touch, nobody else in the path, the quiet satisfaction of running your own corner of the internet. You can — a €5/month VPS is plenty, and the self-hosting guide walks you through it end to end. The honest tradeoff is that every job a managed instance was quietly doing becomes yours, forever: the backups, the security patches, the scaling when something gets popular, the upkeep that never really stops. For some people that's a fair price for control. For others, it's a second job they never wanted.
| Option | Who runs the ops | You control | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managed Home Port (homeport.social) | Me | Your data — portable anytime | You want the easiest start — on the network in minutes. |
| White-label | Me | Your brand, domain & data | You want your own branded community, still managed. |
| Managed on your infra | Me — on your provider or hardware | Your account, provider, hardware, data | You want it managed, but on infrastructure you pick. |
| Self-hosted | You | Everything | You want every knob, and don't mind the upkeep. |
You're never there against your wishes
This is the part I care about most: none of these is a trap. If you start on a managed Home Port and later decide you'd rather self-host, you stand up basically the same service on your own server and bring your data with you — and we make that move deliberately easy, because we don't want anyone here who'd rather be somewhere else. Open protocols, portable data, the same code either way. The freedom to leave is exactly what makes staying a real choice, instead of a default you got stuck with.
So how do you choose?
Start from the burden you want to carry, not the technology:
- Want the easiest start and to be on the network in minutes? A managed Home Port at homeport.social.
- Want your own brand on it? Ask about a white-label plan.
- Want it managed, but on your own provider or hardware? I'll run it there for you — get in touch.
- Want every knob in your own hands and don't mind the upkeep yourself? Self-host it; the docs are all you need.
The freedom was always the point. This is just deciding, deliberately, who carries the burden of running it — knowing you can change your mind whenever you like.