Curious what “home servers” are really for. I’ve gone decades without needing a home server — what am I missing out on?
replies(12):
Syncthing is a great use case. Wherever I take my laptop, the files stay in sync between the two devices; I don't need a third device to act as a server, or iCloud, or any other cloud.
Miniflux. I read my RSS feeds from three devices, so I want to track read status and save bookmarks. It provides a Google Reader-compatible API (yes it lives on), so I can plug NetNewsWire into it.
It's an exit node for Tailscale. Did I mention Tailscale? It's like still being on the same LAN anywhere you go. It doesn't matter if your home server doesn't have a public IP.
Grafana is cool for anything you can plot, as long as you can mash it into something vaguely resembling a time series. Sensor readings, data pulled from some API, CSV export from your bank, your chess ELO, etc. It's often combined with Prometheus. So you can also scrape anything that speaks enough HTTP (which is... many things, these days).
I want to explore something like Navidrome or Jellyfin; for now I use Syncthing for my music library, but even if I could run it on iPhone, the whole collection wouldn't fit. Unfortunately it seems there are no decent apps.
You're also free to explore uncharted territory. Rubenerd is hosting a "house-wide" SQL database: <https://rubenerd.com/our-personal-database/>