this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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Selfhosted

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Hi everyone,

I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.

To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.

🔗 Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=ls

This study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.

If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.

Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project (luka.hrgarek@um.si)!

Cheers!

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[–] Limonene@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This survey doesn't distinguish between levels of cloud service provider, so I was a little confused.

Virtual private servers, cloud virtual servers (like AWS), cloud-based software where you provide code or a program and the cloud system runs it on a server of its choosing, and cloud-based systems where someone else provides the software (like Google Docs).

Thank you for your feedback and for completing the survey. The first part of the survey primarily focuses on Software as a Service (SaaS). We appreciate your input and will consider ways to clarify this in future surveys.

[–] crash_thepose@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

I had a hard time answering these because my opinion on cloud service depends on the cloud. (Google vs nextcloud for instance)

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Done! I've been selfhosting for over 20 years now.

[–] AnimalsDream@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The thing I don't get about these self-host apps is why so many of them exist when the thing they do would be better to implement as a run of the mill offline program.

I just want to auto-import recipes from websites into a cookbook app without any fuss. We do not need to bring a server into this equation!

[–] InnerScientist@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

When making an application instead of coding for one platform you have to code for 5 and also convince Apple and Google to accept your app (Nextcloud is really feeling this one).

Meanwhile HTML + JavaScript works on most smart fridges.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That domain is probably a whole story in another language lol

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[–] bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Done.

I feel that it may be helpful to try to capture the motivation for each type of service.

For example. The reasons I host a media server are different than the reasons I host a photo backup solution.

Thank you for doing this research. I dream of the day that self hosting becomes as easy as spinning up a consumer router.

[–] truxnell@aussie.zone 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] danieldekay@masto.ai 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@SelfhostedResearch Done. But I found the survey design redundant and repetitive. Could demotivate people to complete ;(

Thank you for your honest feedback and for completing the survey. We understand that some questions may have felt redundant or repetitive, but this design is intended to ensure the reliability and accuracy of measuring the same concepts from different perspectives.

[–] Hupf@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Shouldn't the control questions / variations of the same be a bit scattered? For me they were all packed together.

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[–] JustAnotherPodunk@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Done, and link forwarded to my non Lemmy using selfhosting mentor. Maybe can get at least one more respondant. Maybe more. Good luck!

Many of my self hosted solutions are just DIY cludges. I was talking to a friend of a friend on Saturday about media streaming and he told me all about his Jellyfin setup and then asked about mine and I was just like "I just store MP4s on an SSHFS drive and play them in VLC on my TV (which runs Linux Mint)." When the survey asked about the various types of software I was like "No... I don't use anything like that... wait... yes I do! I just don't use a prebuilt solution!"

[–] raldone01@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Done but I felt lots of questions to be very similar. Maybe there is a form platform that can show only a subset of control questions for every survey.

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[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Done. Many questions which are the same or almost similar.

[–] SelfhostedResearch@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you for participating in the survey and for providing your feedback.

We are aware that some of the statements may appear similar or closely related. This is an intentional aspect of the survey design, aimed at capturing different dimensions of the same underlying construct or thematic area. In scientific research, it is a well-established and widely used practice to include multiple, conceptually related items when measuring a specific concept.

[–] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Good luck with your research!

[–] jjlinux@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Done. Are you going to be sharing the results here? That would be cool.

[–] SelfhostedResearch@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thank you very much – I really appreciate your participation! Yes, the results will be published as part of my PhD dissertation, and also in one of the peer-reviewed journals in the field of Computer Science. Once everything is finalized and publicly available, I’ll definitely share a summary and a link to the publication here as well. Thanks again for your interest and support!

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