There are a lot of reasons to favor self-hosting over using web apps created and hosted by one company or another.

First and foremost, self-hosting is (mostly) free! You need to pay for your server, but you can say goodbye to SaaS subscription fees and paid premium accounts.

Self-hosting is virtually limitless — you can run an email service, watch your videos from anywhere, keep your bookmarks safe and secure, run a chat service for your business, host a blog, synchronize your files in the cloud, and more, all from a single server.

A lot of self-hosting advocates like the fact that they control their own data, and not depend on a company. Data breaches happen all the time these days, and it’s hard to know how a company plans to profit from your data. By self-hosting, you take back a bit of power.

Finally, self-hosting helps you learn a lot. If you are hoping to find out more about software development, there’s no better way than just jumping in headfirst.