If your organization relies on web apps for communication, collaboration, and productivity, have you considered self-hosting solutions as an alternative to SaaS?
Self-hosted platforms empower you to run web apps like content management, docs, chat, analytics and more using your own on-prem infrastructure instead of someone else’s servers. This grants improved security, customization, control – often at lower long-term cost.
Let‘s compare 4 robust options for self-management:
Wait – What Exactly is Self-Hosting?
With traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, the vendor stores customer data on their cloud infrastructure, manages updates/fixes, and configures availability and scalability.
Self-hosted solutions flip this on its head – handing over control of apps and data to your internal teams while providing tools to manage the environment.
Perks can include:
- Customization – Modify app code and functionality as needed
- Control – Maintain oversight of data storage, upgrades, infrastructure sizing
- Security – Keep proprietary data on-premises reducing external exposure
- Cost Savings – Avoid recurring monthly/annual SaaS licensing expenses
- Reliability – Ensure 24/7 application availability independent of Internet connectivity
Of course, your staff takes on more responsibility related to scaling infrastructure, applying security patches, backup/recovery, troubleshooting, and routine maintenance. Self-hosted platforms highlighted here aim to simplify these tasks.
Let‘s explore top solutions…
Sandstorm: Feature-Packed Open Source Platform
Sandstorm offers a completely free and open-source self-hosting framework focused on security and privacy. Users praise the intuitive interface and granular data controls.
As an open source project actively developed by a non-profit, Sandstorm aligns well ethically for many organizations. Capabilities span:
- Over 70 one-click installable apps including collaboration tools, publishing, project management, analytics and more
- Fine-tuned access permissions down to individual document levels
- Activity logging for audits showing exactly who accessed what and when
- Automated free SSL certificates, DNS management, and security hardening
- LDAP, SAML, OAuth integrations for unified access control
- Robust admin dashboard with insights on users, apps, system performance
Sandstorm utilizes an unique "grain" concept separating each user document or file into isolated environments limiting access to only those explicitly permitted. This "least privilege" approach ensures confidential data stays protected.
The platform runs even on low-cost hardware like a Raspberry Pi. Minimum recommended requirements are:
- 1 GHz dual-core CPU
- 1 GB RAM
- 10 GB disk space
As an ethical open source project focused squarely on privacy and security, Sandstorm matches or exceeds proprietary self-hosting platforms capabilities. An active community contributes apps, translations, security audits and feature enhancements.
Top Apps
- Etherpad – Collaborative document editing
- Davros – File sharing and storage
- Wekan – Kanban boards
- GitWeb – Browse Git repositories
- WordPress – Publishing, blogs, and CMS
For non-profits, schools, and privacy-conscious organizations, Sandstorm deserves a hard look.
YunoHost: Hassle-free Self-Hosting
Created as a free open source project primarily aimed at non-profits and smaller groups, YunoHost simplifies self-hosting.
The initiative focuses on ease-of-use for less technical teams with limited budgets. Some capabilities:
- User-friendly administrative console minimizing command line usage
- Support for over 100 apps with more added continuously
- Centralized user management connecting all installed apps
- Automated Let‘s Encrypt SSL cert provisioning
- Backups, migrations, and restoration tools
- Multi-user permissions and security controls
While not as full-featured as Sandstorm for large deployments, YunoHost remains popular for small office or group collaboration use cases.
An active international developer community contributes to enhancing capabilities centered around simplicity.
Top Apps
- OnlyOffice – Online editing and docs
- Mastodon – Open source microblogging platform
- Matomo – Website analytics
- WordPress – Content management and blogs
- NextCloud – File sync and share
For smaller teams with limited resources seeking self-hosted apps, YunoHost warrants evaluation.
Cloudron Makes Self-Hosting a Breeze
Cloudron creates a simplified self-managed environment leaning on Docker container technology.
Some highlights:
- One-click installation for over 30 common apps
- Apps isolated into Docker containers enhancing security
- Backups automatically saved to external storage providers
- Centralized access controls, Dashboards, and reporting
- Support for user groups and permissions
- Migration between servers or cloud providers
This commercial solution suits larger organizations or regulated industries needing controls lacking in open source options. While a Cloudron subscription costs roughly $10-20 monthly per user, some find this worth convenience and security.
Forturnately for cost-conscious teams, Cloudron offers a free trial for testing.
Key Apps
- OnlyOffice – Docs, spreadsheets and slides
- Nextcloud – File hosting and synchronization
- Mattermost – Open source chat and messaging
- Discourse – Discussion forum hosting
- WordPress – Website and blog publishing
If seeking managed private cloud hosting with Cloudron pre-configured, Kamatera offers very affordable rates.
DPlatform – Frills-Free Docker-Centric Option
An open source platform utilizing Docker containers for isolation, DPlatform simplifies self-hosting apps like OnlyOffice, WordPress, and Minecraft.
Attributes such as:
- Friendly browser-based interface for automated installs
- Apps packaged via Docker improving security
- One-click start/stop/restart for app management
- Monitoring tools providing service visibility
- BYOL model supporting licensed proprietary apps
- OAuth authentication connector integration
As a lightweight self-hosting stack using Docker for app deployment and isolation, DPlatform suits smaller workgroups. It avoids complexity allowing hosting commercial apps not workable on other platforms.
Active development work happens thanks to a modest open source community.
Comparing Platform Capabilities
Determining the ideal self-hosted stack depends greatly on your organization‘s needs and environment. Let‘s contrast key criteria:
Evaluate aspects like number of apps readily available, ease of maintenance for your skill level, scalability plans, and security requirements.
Do higher cost platforms like Cloudron or Sandstorm offer enough extra hardening, support, and resiliency to justify expense?
Get hands-on with trial deployments to clarify total costs of ownership expectations.
Addressing Self-Hosting Concerns
Despite potential benefits, some organizations pause on self-hosting worried about aspects like:
Security Expertise
No question self-managed infrastructure transfers responsibility for applying security updates and hardening configurations to your staff.
Mitigate risks by restricting application access to VPN or private networks. Seek platforms with defaults optimized for security like Sandstorm and Cloudron.
Augment in-house skills via managed service providers able to configure, monitor, and support solutions.
Reliability Fears
Downtime tolerance varies greatly between companies. Even modest outages can sap productivity and revenue.
Ensuring continuity with self-hosted architecture requires expertise planning redundancy, failover, effective backups and recovery processes.
Choose solutions allowing flexibility to cost-effectively grow infrastructure resiliency as uptime needs evolve.
Hardware Failures
On-premises servers undoubtedly carry higher hardware failure rates than cloud-hosted software. Mitigate through redundant component architectures preventing single points of failure.
Seeking platforms integrating with Kubernetes and container orchestration will enable smoother recovery from incidents. Monitor for indicators of impending hardware faults like storagespace, unusual latency, or temperature fluctuations.
Use platforms capable of migrating between physical servers – allowing seamless transition to replacements after outages.
Ongoing Management Overhead
While each platform minimizes grunt work considerably through automation and containers, allocate staff time for tasks like:
- User access provisioning
- Security patching
- App licensing/renewals
- Performance monitoring
- Storage capacity expansion planning
- Testing/validating upgrades and migrations
Balance workload through platforms with delegated controls allowing help desk teams to handle daily requests.
Identify the best software for your administrator skill level – balancing power versus complexity.
Getting Started Tips
When ready to explore self-hosting first-hand:
Start Small, Then Scale
Don‘t simply aim to reproduce your full existing SaaS app environment on day one. Walk before running.
Install just 1-2 apps monitoring resource usage before expanding. This allows testing backup/recovery processes on smaller data sets.
Allocate Headroom
While self-hosted software runs surprisingly well even on frugal hardware like Raspberry Pi boards, performance and capacity planning still matters.
Start by estimating storage and memory needs for the next 12-18 months allowing breathing room to grow. Shoot for at least 30% RAM and disk space headroom beyond today‘s consumption.
Stress Test Environments
Vet the reliability of your configurations under heavy simulated loads before depending on self-hosted apps daily. Identify max performance limits through tools like Apache JMeter driving demanding test traffic.
Standardize Authentication
Minimize login chaos by integrating central authentication via LDAP, OAuth, or SAML rather than separate credentials for every app. Cloudron offers this out-of-the-box while platforms like YunoHost or Sandstorm can utilize LDAP integration.
Following these practical preparations will assure your initial self-hosted endeavors position teams for success.
Self-Hosting Fuels Customization
For organizations reliant on key web applications day to day, self-hosting platforms empower taking back control over customization, security, and availability while saving on ballooning SaaS subscription costs long term.
Carefully evaluate options against your environment and risk tolerance. Mitigate transition risks through staged migrations and isolating the infrastructure. Despite some extra effort involved, self-hosting offers game-changing flexibility solving vendor lock-in and scaling constraints.
What apps make the most sense bringing in-house? Do benefits outweigh lift for your workspace? Now you have insight to make an informed strategic decision rather than reactively allowing monthly fees compound indefinitely!
