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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to I wrote a book about self-hosting for a small group of friends/family

If you're not yet self-hosting or looking to adjust your self-hosting setup, you might find it useful. Edit: The ebook is available now for purchase/download. Earlier beta was mentioned at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40269993

I wrote a book about self-hosting for a small group of friends/family is an ebook guide designed for people new to self-hosting or those refining their existing setups. The book provides practical information to help… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. I wrote a book about self-hosting for a small group of friends/family launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1

    Learn the core transferable skills of setting up Linux virtual servers and Docker containers. Provision web servers, application servers, workers, and databases.

    2021 · deploymentfromscratch.com · its alternatives →

  2. 2IW

    Hey folks. Last year I was fortunate enough to sign a deal to write a book with my favorite technical publisher, The Pragmatic Bookshelf. When I started out as an Engineering Manager many years ago, I found that there wasn't a huge amount of material that specifically and practically helped me understand how to do my job. When you learn to program there's all of these amazing tutorials, examples and guides, but what was there for new managers? In response to this, a couple of years ago I started a blog over at https://www.theengineeringmanager.com which got a decent amount of…

    2020 · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A few days ago, I responded to a comment by bloggergirl offering to read anyone's web copy and help. I shot off an email hoping for a paragraph or two of feedback on my startup's copy. Instead I received a professional, detailed deck of tons of invaluable well thought out feedback. It must have taken her an entire afternoon. Here's a link to it: http://www.slideshare.net/shereefb/recommendations-for-bettermeans To top it off, this isn't someone with a lot of free time on her hands, she's only days away from launching her own startup (page99test) This community blows my mind!

    2010 · slideshare.net · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    Server and configuration management for humans

    2015 · ansiblefordevops.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Make the right choice in affordable website hosting.

    2015 · gumroad.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6MT
  7. 7

    What programmers need to know about web servers.

    2015 · book.serversforhackers.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    Hey HN, I just wanted to share that after five months of intense work and countless caffeine-fueled writing sessions, "Master Software Architecture: A Pragmatic Guide" is now available. Writing this book was a crazy time. I entirely focused on it, and it took exactly 753 hours of writing, editing, and image editing & resizing(!) until the premiere. Yes, the last one (images) was a killer. If you ever think about writing a book, reserve a lot of time for it unless someone else does it for you. As a result, I am handing you the nearly 400-page book. It is a guide that will help you connect all…

    2024 · leanpub.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Hey HN, I'm so excited to finally share with you what I've been working on recently. One month ago I asked my audience what they wanted to learn about Websites, APIs and Servers security [0]. From the feedback, I've identified a few recurring pain points that I've started to address (and many more) in this new book. From theory to practice, you will learn how low-level network and security protocols work. How to configure Cloudflare to secure and scale your web applications. How to create serverless applications and which database to chose with serverless functions. How to optimize your…

    2023 · kerkour.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    A developer's guide to launching a startup

    2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11
  12. 12AS

    Hi HN, I'm Alon, and I'm building Alien, an open-source platform for deploying your software into your customer's environment and keeping it fully managed. In my previous startup, I heard the same question from every single enterprise customer over and over again: "My data is sensitive. Can I deploy your product to my own cloud account?" Self-hosting is becoming very popular because it lets users keep their data private, local, and inside their own environment. Unfortunately, self-hosting breaks down when someone starts paying for your software. Especially if it's an enterprise customer.…

    Apr 2026 · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    The easy way to host your website or blog

    2021 · 1mb.co · its alternatives →

  14. 14

    docker for beginners

    2016 · docker-curriculum.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15MB

    Hi, I spent the last year and a half writing a book on Docker and microservices, which was finally released on O'Reilly this week. "Using Docker: Developing and Deploying Software with Containers" takes a holistic approach, showing how containers can be used as the central artifact in a modern software development workflow. If anyone has any q's or feedback, please feel free to comment below. The book is available at: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920035671.do (use code AUTHD for a discount)…

    2016 · its alternatives →

  16. 16SA

    I had the idea to create a dedicated web page containing basic, easy-to-understand digital hygiene advice. So if a friend or relative asks you for advice on securing their digital lives, you can simply give them a link and hopefully they'll share it with their friends too. Hosting is on GitHub pages; just a single, semantic, accessible HTML file. I just made this today, so contributions are welcome, especially right now. I am not a security researcher, so if anyone finds an issue with what I've written in this first draft, or thinks some other point deserves mentioning, please tell me either…

    2020 · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hey all, we're reposting from our previous Show HN about 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28644205 Since then we've grown to more than 5k users across nearly 1k groups and have sent out more than 100k update prompts. The premise is simple - social media stinks and you either don't see updates from people you care about (they never post) or you miss the updates (flooded by other people's updates or an algorithm that downplays an update you'd care about even if it's seemingly unimportant). And we're ramen profitable (more so now that we've migrated the majority…

    May 2026 · togetherletters.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18

    In Serverless for Everyone Else, you'll learn practical use-cases for Serverless Functions, how to build and deploy your own functions that you can run anywhere at a low, predictable cost.The faasd project makes it quick and easy way to start building and deploying functions, within the first few ho

    2021 · gumroad.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    In this book I distill the techniques and methods that I’ve been using and advising others to use to successfully run distributed teams and whole companies. This book will be short, to the point, tactical, and have tool recommendations.

    2022 · pablofernandez.tech · its alternatives →

  20. 20IW

    Hello! I just published a book on Site Reliability Engineering. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QNZC2LL This book is a collection of 28 chapters on SRE concepts, such as observability, monitoring, Service Level Objectives (SLOs), alerting, resilience and debugging. I adapted each chapter from blog posts I've written over the last 4 years. Most of the chapters detailed concepts that I applied while working at $dayjob, so they are 100% proven in real business settings :) ------ Some info on the backstory. Last year I started writing a book on my software development…

    2022 · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    I've built a Godot plugin that lets you publish and update your projects directly from the editor to TheGates. It gives you free hosting and native performance on Linux, Windows, and macOS — no setup or packaging needed. it’s meant for indie devs who want to share builds quickly, gather feedback, or host small demos without exporting to multiple platforms or asking users to reinstall every time.

    2025 · thegates.io · its alternatives →

  22. 22IB

    Recently moved all of my apps to a $4/mo VPS using Coolify Saved tons of $$, and can self-host my Ghost/Wordpress/Postgres instances etc. Built a tool to help others do the same

    2024 · indiehost.io · its alternatives →

  23. 23AG

    Here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T8R91jWhQK9t7IwQGngDDLFavJ2LTNtlntThgQPS0Uo/edit?usp=sharing Feel free to add articles to the suggestions section, and I will review them and add to the document! Any and all feedback is accepted!

    2015 · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    What every developer should know about large distributed applications

    2021 · understandingdistributed.systems · its alternatives →

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