YunoHost - The Easiest Way To Self-Host Your Favorite Apps (Set It Up Within 15-Minutes)
Managing all of your applications individually can be a bit of a pain. That said, YunoHost can help simplify your self-hosting experience. Let me explain more...
YunoHost is more than just a server OS; it's a complete ecosystem designed for self-hosting your favorite applications, with full control over your own data.
The best part is, besides hosting expenses, there are zero expenses. YunoHost is entirely free and as far as I know, every single application on YunoHost is free and open source.
Based on Debian (a Linux distribution), YunoHost stands out from other distributions because it all centers around one easy-to-use web interface:
It simplifies the entire system administration process and makes self-hosting applications a possibility for anyone (even your grandpa). It can also take care of your general website, email, and domain management needs.
Explaining more about YunoHost
No one can explain YunoHost better than... well, YunoHost.
YunoHost is an operating system aiming for the simplest administration of a server, and therefore democratize self-hosting, while making sure it stays reliable, secure, ethical and lightweight. It is a copylefted libre software project maintained exclusively by volunteers. Technically, it can be seen as a distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux and can be installed on many kinds of hardware.
They also explain the birth of YunoHost:
YunoHost was created in February 2012 after something like this:
"Shit, I'm too lazy to reconfigure my mail server... Beudbeud, how were you able to get your little server running with LDAP?" - Kload (YunoHost founder), February 2012
All that was needed was an admin interface for Beudbeud's server to make something usable, so Kload decided to develop one. Finally, after automating several configs and packaging in some web apps, YunoHost v1 was finished.
Noting the growing enthusiasm around YunoHost and around self-hosting in general, the original developers along with new contributors decided to start work on version 2, a more extensible, more powerful, more easy-to-use, and at that, one that makes a nice cup of fair-trade coffee for the elves of Lapland.
The name YunoHost comes from the jargon "Y U NO Host". The Internet meme should illustrate it:
They also let you know who YunoHost is not for:
Even if YunoHost can handle multiple domains and multiple users, it is not meant to be a mutualized system.
First, the software is too young, not tested at scale and thus probably not optimized well enough for hundreds of users at the same time. With that said, we do not want to lead the software in that direction. Virtualization democratizes, and its usage is recommended since it is a more watertight way to achieve mutualization than a "full-stack" system like YunoHost.
You can host your friends, your family and your company safely and with ease, but you must trust your users, and they must trust you above all. If you want to provide YunoHost services for unknown persons anyway, a full VPS per user will be just fine, and we believe a better way to go.
Essentially stating YunoHost is great for hobbyist use, and it's an easy way to self-host your favorite apps, but it's probably not ideal to build a business around it.
What kind of applications can you self-host with YunoHost?
Well, to name a few:
Nextcloud: Online storage, file sharing platform and various other applications
RustDesk Server: Remote control alternative for self-hosting
Vaultwarden: Manage passwords and other sensitive information
Wallabag: A self hostable read-it-later app
Roundcube: Open Source Webmail software
Redirect: Create a redirection or a proxy to another path
My Webapp: Custom Web app with SFTP access to serve static (HTML, CSS, JS) and PHP files
WireGuard: Fast and modern VPN server, including a configuration webapp
Synapse: Instant messaging server which uses Matrix
Element: Web client for Matrix
SnappyMail: Simple, modern, lightweight & fast web-based e-mail client
Jellyfin: Media System that manages and streams your media
Transmission: Fast, Easy, and Free BitTorrent Client
Gitea: Lightweight Git forge
Calibre-web: Browsing, reading and downloading eBooks using a Calibre database
Borg Backup: Backup your server on a host server using Borg
AdGuard Home: Network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server
Syncthing: Continuous file synchronization program
HedgeDoc: Collaborative editor to work on notes written in Markdown
Mattermost: Open source collaboration platform built for developers
Dokuwiki: Lightweight, simple to use and highly versatile wiki
OnlyOffice: Create and edit documents collaboratively
CryptPad: Zero Knowledge realtime collaborative office suite
Paperless-ngx: Scan, index and archive all your physical documents
Navidrome: Modern Music Server and Streamer compatible with Subsonic/Airsonic
SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine which aggregates results from more than 70 search services
Photoprism: AI-Powered Photos App for the Decentralized Web
FreshRSS: RSS aggregator with a nice and mobile-friendly design
Home Assistant: Home automation platform
Collabora Online: LibreOffice-based online office suite with collaborative editing
BorgWarehouse: WebUI for a BorgBackup's central repository server
Borg Server: Offer backup storage to a friend
Baïkal: Lightweight CalDAV and CardDAV server
WordPress: Create a beautiful blog or website easily
Signaturepdf: Sign, stamp, and reorganize PDF files
Mastodon: Libre and federated social network
Invidious: Alternative front-end to YouTube
Element-Call: Group calls powered by Matrix
Uptime Kuma: Monitoring tool like Uptime-Robot
RSS-Bridge: RSS and Atom feed generator for websites that don't have one
LibreQR: Web interface for generating QR codes
PeerTube: Federated video streaming platform using P2P directly in the web browser
Listmonk: Newsletter and mailing list manager
Grocy: Web-based groceries & household management solution for your home
GoToSocial: Fast ActivityPub social network server written in Go
Etherpad MyPads: Online editor providing collaborative editing in real-time
Cypht: Lightweight Open Source webmail
Unattended-upgrades: Daily automatic upgrades
Tiny Tiny RSS: News feed (RSS/Atom) reader and aggregator
OpenSondage: Service for planning an appointment or making a decision quickly and easily
LXD: Offers a user experience similar to virtual machines but using Linux containers instead
LimeSurvey: Create and distribute surveys
Jitsi Meet: Video conferencing web application
Shaarli: The personal, minimalist, super-fast, no-database delicious clone
Pixelfed: ActivityPub Federated Image Sharing
Piwigo: Open source photo gallery for the web
ntfy: Open Source Push Notification Server
Matrix-WhatsApp bridge: Matrix / Synapse puppeting bridge for WhatsApp
Matomo: Analytics platform for measuring Web statistics
LibreSpeed: Very lightweight Speedtest
Jirafeau: Upload a file in a simple way and give a unique link to it
I Hate Money: Simple app to manage your collective expenses
Forgejo: Lightweight software forge
BookWyrm: Platform for social reading
Actual: Local-first personal finance tool
Umami: Simple, fast, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics
There are certainly enough applications it's worth giving a spin. You could replace just about every paid application you have with a solution YunoHost offers.
Installing YunoHost
Installing YunoHost is extremely easy. Anyone could do it in less than 15-minutes.
You could either host it at home on a spare computer (even a Raspberry Pi), or a hosting provider.
Most people opt for a server from a hosting provider so that they don't have to worry about anything. It's just always online and works.
Depending on what you want to host, what you need is going to vary. For example, if you're looking to host Nextcloud, you're probably going to want to pick up a server with a larger drive, maybe even a hard drive, rather than SSD/NVMe.
But there are also a lot of applications that could run on minimal disk, and use other resources like ram, so you'll just need to think about what applications you're looking to run and the respective resource consumption. YunoHost itself isn't very resource intensive (it's just based on Debian).
The very company you're reading this blog post on right now, xTom, is a worldwide infrastructure as a service provider that is more than capable of the job of hosting your YunoHost server.
For a few simple applications, our Starter VPS for €6.95 monthly could suffice, but I might recommend our Pro plan for €9.95 monthly for some extra breathing room.
Anyway, after you've secured a server to install YunoHost on, just install Debian 11 on it and run the following command:
curl -sL https://install.yunohost.org | bash
That one command will install YunoHost.
By the way, Debian 12 is out now, but YunoHost doesn't support it yet. You still need to use Debian 11, which isn't a concern yet as it's still being updated.
After installing, navigate to your servers' public IP address. You'll then need to add a main domain to use with YunoHost, add a new user (non admin user), and request an SSL certificate for your main domain so that YunoHost is using encryption.
Then you're done! The only step remaining is to install your desired applications:
Conclusion
So, there you have it – YunoHost on xTom's servers is like a match made in tech heaven for anyone interested in self-hosting their own applications.