"Self-hosting is the practice of running a website or service on a home server instead of a web hosting service outside of the administrator's own control."
And then basically contradicts itself in the next paragraph:
"The practice of self-hosting web services became more feasible with the development of cloud computing and virtualization technologies, which enabled users to run their own servers on remote hardware or virtual machines."
In any case, I think the generally accepted definition of self-hosting has expanded over the years to include software that you're running on rented hardware in someone else's data center.
I would describe it as externally hosted yet managed specifically because someone else is most likely, whether they admit to it or not, recording some sort of logs on my service and data and that is a choice that I do not own or, in some cases, have access to.
I think it's a pretty clear line. Self hosted means you can run it locally in your home, using a saas platform or vps is just a convenience, not a requirement.
What about FOSS SaaS alternatives that are meant for team collab? Like Plane (Jira replacement). Does that have to be ran locally at home for it to be considered "self hosted"?
No, crazy would be owning the router and cables/satellites as well as producing your own power and having a manufacturing plant for hardware capable of running the software.
Careful with Cloudflare's "free" AI tier if you use paid workers. I was never able to get an answer on why I was billed for their confusing neuron usage for stuff that should have been covered under their usage limits. Their customer support just ignored my ticket. Apparently it's a known issue that they don't give a shit based on discussions in their support Discord.
Did a side project on Workers and the self host test for me was whether I could run it off Cloudflare at all. Durable Objects and KV bindings meant no, so it was really just deploy it yourself.
Hi HN! I built Talorys, an open-source personal AI agent that runs entirely in your own Cloudflare account.
The idea came from wanting a personal AI assistant that I could own and control, without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
Talorys uses Cloudflare Workers, Workers AI, Durable Objects, and Pages to provide:
AI chat with persistent memory and conversation history
Task, note, and project management
Scheduled reminders and recurring automations
A responsive web interface accessible from any device
Password-protected access with no signup or external accounts
One-command deployment: npx create-talorys@latest
Everything runs in your Cloudflare account. Your data stays under your control, and there's no telemetry or third-party backend operated by me.
It's designed to work within Cloudflare's free-tier limits for personal use. You don't need to manage a VPS, database server, or Docker containers.
The biggest challenge was making deployment simple enough that someone could set up their own AI assistant without manually configuring Cloudflare services.
The project is still early, and I'd love feedback from the HN community, especially on the architecture, security, and what would make a self-hosted personal AI agent genuinely useful.
> without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
But you are hosting it on Cloudflare? There is always a cost when running on someone else's platform that advertises itself as 'free-tier' and it can change at any moment.
I'm torn in situations like these, because OP is clearly furthering societal trends that are objectively harmful by watering down terminology like this.
It is snark, but it is immune-response snark and not petty snark.
One shouldn't crush them for it, as it might be driven by naivety, but soft politeness alone doesn't steer us away from harmful ideas.
Social friction caused by feeling stupid for saying something is an important tool if wielded with responsibility and not just swung for ego.
If the software can be switched to a rented or purchased hardware (I do not want Cloudflare's offering) then it is "self-host-able" IMO.
I think there are open source Cloudflare alternative hosting software.
The first sentence states:
"Self-hosting is the practice of running a website or service on a home server instead of a web hosting service outside of the administrator's own control."
And then basically contradicts itself in the next paragraph:
"The practice of self-hosting web services became more feasible with the development of cloud computing and virtualization technologies, which enabled users to run their own servers on remote hardware or virtual machines."
In any case, I think the generally accepted definition of self-hosting has expanded over the years to include software that you're running on rented hardware in someone else's data center.
I would describe it as externally hosted yet managed specifically because someone else is most likely, whether they admit to it or not, recording some sort of logs on my service and data and that is a choice that I do not own or, in some cases, have access to.
With `@cf/qwen/qwen3.8-27b` it's 240K input tokens and 34,000 output tokens
The idea came from wanting a personal AI assistant that I could own and control, without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
Talorys uses Cloudflare Workers, Workers AI, Durable Objects, and Pages to provide:
AI chat with persistent memory and conversation history Task, note, and project management Scheduled reminders and recurring automations A responsive web interface accessible from any device Password-protected access with no signup or external accounts One-command deployment: npx create-talorys@latest Everything runs in your Cloudflare account. Your data stays under your control, and there's no telemetry or third-party backend operated by me.
It's designed to work within Cloudflare's free-tier limits for personal use. You don't need to manage a VPS, database server, or Docker containers.
The biggest challenge was making deployment simple enough that someone could set up their own AI assistant without manually configuring Cloudflare services.
The project is still early, and I'd love feedback from the HN community, especially on the architecture, security, and what would make a self-hosted personal AI agent genuinely useful.
GitHub: https://github.com/rociiu/talorys
It's MIT licensed. Contributions and suggestions are welcome!
But you are hosting it on Cloudflare? There is always a cost when running on someone else's platform that advertises itself as 'free-tier' and it can change at any moment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
It is snark, but it is immune-response snark and not petty snark.
One shouldn't crush them for it, as it might be driven by naivety, but soft politeness alone doesn't steer us away from harmful ideas.
Social friction caused by feeling stupid for saying something is an important tool if wielded with responsibility and not just swung for ego.