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DevOps & Infrastructure

Stop Paying Rent for the Cloud: The Wong Edan Guide

March 26, 2026 • By Azzar Budiyanto

The Sinner’s Prayer of the Digital Age

Welcome, you beautiful, data-enslaved peasants. You’ve spent the last decade handing over your precious photos, your embarrassing search history, and your soul to the corporate overlords at Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. You pay them monthly for the privilege of letting them mine your data. Wong Edan says: enough is enough! You want to self-host? You want to be the master of your own silicon destiny? You’ve come to the right place, or at least the most honest one.

Self-hosting is the art of running your own services on your own hardware. It’s like moving out of your parents’ house (the Cloud) and into your own studio apartment. Sure, the plumbing might leak and you have to take out the trash yourself, but at least nobody is watching you through the bathroom window to sell you targeted advertisements for soap. According to the enlightened folks on r/selfhosted, the journey from a “complete idiot” to a “data sovereign” is paved with broken Linux kernels and 3:00 AM Docker troubleshooting sessions. Let’s get you started before you lose another gigabyte to the void.

Phase 1: The Scavenger’s Hardware Hunt

Most “idiots” think they need a rack-mounted server that sounds like a Boeing 747 taking off in their living room. Wrong. The beauty of starting your self-hosting journey is that you probably already own the hardware. The Reddit consensus is clear: look in your closet. That old laptop with the cracked screen and the “I Heart 2014” sticker is a goldmine. Why?

  • Built-in UPS: An old laptop has a battery. If the power goes out, your server doesn’t just die and corrupt your database; it stays alive long enough for a graceful shutdown.
  • Low Power Consumption: It won’t make your electric meter spin like a fidget spinner on steroids.
  • External HDD Support: Grab those old external drives you used for college backups. They are your new storage array.

If you don’t have an old laptop, a Raspberry Pi or a cheap used “Tiny-Mini-Micro” PC from eBay will do. The goal here isn’t to build a supercomputer; it’s to host a place for your cat photos where Google can’t analyze them to sell you Meow Mix.

Phase 2: The OS Dilemma – Desktop is Your Friend

There is a peculiar type of masochism in the tech world where people tell beginners to install “Linux Server” editions immediately. These editions have no buttons. No windows. Just a blinking cursor that judges your lack of command-line knowledge. Wong Edan’s advice, backed by the Reddit community: Start with Ubuntu or Debian Desktop.

Yes, I know, the “hardcore” nerds will scoff. But if you are a “complete idiot” (your words, not mine), having a mouse and a file explorer while you learn is the difference between success and a smashed monitor. Install Ubuntu Desktop. It’s stable, it has the best documentation on the internet, and when you inevitably break the networking settings, you can actually click a GUI button to fix it instead of reciting incantations in /etc/network/interfaces.

“Start by learning Docker and Docker Compose. Install Ubuntu/Debian (not server) and then…” — Every sane person on Reddit.

Phase 3: The Holy Grail Called Docker

If you take nothing else away from this guide, hear this: Learn Docker. In the old days (around 2015, ancient history), installing a service meant installing 50 dependencies that would fight with each other like siblings in a car ride. Docker changed that. It puts each application in its own “container.” It has everything it needs to run, and it doesn’t touch anything else.

To get started, you need Docker and Docker Compose. Once those are installed, you don’t “install” apps anymore; you “deploy” them using a simple text file called a docker-compose.yml. Here is a taste of the power you’re about to wield. This is how you’d set up Filebrowser, a Google Drive alternative mentioned in the DeGoogle tips:


services:
  filebrowser:
    image: hurlenko/filebrowser
    user: 1000:1000
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - /path/to/your/files:/data
      - /path/to/config:/config
    restart: always

You save that, you run docker-compose up -d, and suddenly, you have a web-based file manager running on port 8080. You are now a sysadmin. Go tell your mom; she won’t understand, but she’ll be proud.

Phase 4: The “DeGoogle” Starter Pack

Why are we doing this? Mostly because we’re paranoid, but also because it’s fun. The Reddit community suggests a specific set of “gateway drugs” for self-hosting that replace common corporate services:

1. Syncthing (The Google Drive Killer)

Syncthing is magic. It’s a decentralized file synchronization tool. You install it on your server, your phone, and your laptop. You take a photo on your phone, and poof, it’s on your server and your laptop instantly. No middleman. No cloud. No “storage full” emails from Sundar Pichai.

2. Plex or Jellyfin (The Netflix Killer)

Tired of streaming services removing your favorite shows? Host them yourself. Plex is the polished, commercial-grade option, while Jellyfin is the completely free, open-source alternative. Point it at your “legally acquired” movie collection and enjoy your own private Netflix.

3. Tailscale (The Networking Wizard)

One of the biggest hurdles for beginners is: “How do I access my stuff when I’m at the coffee shop?” Opening ports on your router is a great way to get hacked by a teenager in a basement halfway across the world. Tailscale is the answer. It creates a private, encrypted “mesh VPN.” You install it on your devices, and they all act like they are on the same home Wi-Fi, no matter where they are. It’s the closest thing to magic in the networking world.

Phase 5: Security – Don’t Be a Sitting Duck

Listen closely, because this is where things get serious. If you put your server on the internet, people will try to break in. It’s not a matter of if, but when. The r-selfhosted-security guide is the gold standard here. Here are the non-negotiables:

  • Do Not Port Forward Port 80/443: Unless you know what you are doing with a Reverse Proxy (like Nginx Proxy Manager or Traefik), keep your ports closed.
  • Cloudflare Tunnels (Argo): This is a favorite on Reddit. Instead of opening a hole in your firewall, you run a small “tunnel” from your server to Cloudflare. People access your site through Cloudflare, and Cloudflare handles the scary stuff. It means you don’t have to expose your home IP address.
  • Backups are Sacred: As the Reddit “Diary” post notes, even tech-savvy dudes mess up. Manual backups to an external hard drive using rsync is a solid start. If it’s not in two places, it doesn’t exist.

The “Argo” concept is particularly powerful for beginners because it eliminates the need for complex router configurations. You just install the connector, and your service is live on the web behind a layer of protection.

Phase 6: The Social Media and Public Web Hosting Confusion

A common question on r/selfhosted is: “Can I host my own social media network for the whole world to use?” Technically, yes. Practically? You’re going to need a bigger boat. There is a massive difference between “Self-hosting for me and my family” and “Self-hosting a web app for the public.”

If you want to host a website or a social network, you need to understand bandwidth and availability. If your home internet goes down because your cat tripped over the router, your “global social network” goes down too. For beginners, stick to self-hosting for yourself first. Once you understand Docker and security, then you can start thinking about becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg (but, you know, with morals).

Wong Edan’s Verdict

Self-hosting is a rabbit hole. You start by wanting to back up your photos, and six months later, you’re explaining to your spouse why you need a dedicated 10Gbps switch and a redundant power supply for your “home lab.”

Is it hard? At first, yes. You will see errors. You will feel like an idiot.
Is it worth it? Absolutely. There is a profound sense of satisfaction in knowing that your data is sitting on a disk three feet away from you, under your control, and completely private.

The Golden Rules to Remember:

  1. Start small. Use that old laptop.
  2. Install Ubuntu Desktop until you’re comfortable with the terminal.
  3. Docker is your god now. Worship it.
  4. Tailscale is your best friend for remote access.
  5. Back up your data, or don’t complain when it vanishes.

Now go forth, you beautiful lunatics. Turn off the cloud and turn on your server. Your digital freedom is waiting, and it’s running on a 2015 Dell Latitude with a sticky keyboard. Wong Edan out.