selfhost.directory: 2,500+ self-hosted alternatives, one search box

Every client conversation eventually hits the same question: do we really need to pay a SaaS vendor for this, or can we just run it ourselves? selfhost.directory is built for that exact moment. It is a directory of self-hostable software, organized by category, with the license and the latest version attached to every listing, so the answer to 'is there a self-hosted version of this' takes one search instead of an afternoon of tab-hopping.

What it actually is

Open selfhost.directory and you get a search box and a wall of categories: Developer Tools, AI, Media Management, Automation, Productivity, Collaboration, DevOps, Monitoring, Security, Privacy, Communication, and more. The category counts alone add up to well over 2,500 listings: Developer Tools carries 391 projects, AI another 309, Media Management 303. Each entry shows what it replaces, its license, and a version number that gets kept current instead of a screenshot from whenever the entry was written.

The flagship names are ones you already know: Nextcloud instead of Google Drive, Jellyfin instead of paying for a media server in the cloud, Immich instead of Google Photos, Open WebUI as a self-hosted front end for any model you point it at. The value is not any single one of those. It is that they all sit in one browsable, searchable list instead of four different blog posts you half remember.

Why it matters for what we ship

Self-hosting is not a hobbyist detour, it is a real answer to the question we raised in our DPDP piece: every third-party SaaS tool a client's data touches is another vendor, another data processing agreement, another place a breach can start. Sometimes the right call for a client is still a managed SaaS product. But the call should be a real comparison, not a default, and a directory that lays the self-hosted option next to its license and version is what makes that comparison quick enough to actually happen mid scope-call.

We still reach for Cloudflare and our own stack on client builds, that has not changed. What changes is the reflex: before we add another subscription to a client's monthly bill, a quick pass through selfhost.directory tells us whether the thing we need already has a self-hosted, open-source answer.

The honest tradeoff

Self-hosting moves cost from a monthly invoice to your own time: patching, backups, uptime, the 2am page when a container falls over. For a client who wants zero ops burden, a SaaS subscription is still the right answer, and we will say so. The directory does not pretend otherwise either, it lists the software, not a promise that running it yourself is free.

Next step: keep selfhost.directory open next time a client asks if there is a cheaper way to run something they are renting. We added it to our own tools page for the same reason.