Guides
Practical guides to setting up, securing and running your own servers, written for developers, indie founders and small teams responsible for production.
Domains, DNS and Email: A Self-Run Setup That Lasts
Choose a registrar, move DNS to Cloudflare safely, and set up custom-domain email with SPF, DKIM and DMARC without running a mail server on your VPS.
Managed vs Self-Hosted Databases: What You Take On
Compare managed and self-hosted Postgres by recovery work, maintenance, security and downtime, then choose what your team can realistically operate safely.
Self-Hosted LLMs: Choose Hardware, Keep Cloud Where It Helps
Decide whether to self-host an LLM, choose hardware around memory and workload, and run a private inference service without turning it into another outage.
Self-Hosting on One VPS: What to Run and What to Leave to SaaS
Decide which apps belong on a single VPS, which services to keep with SaaS, and how backups, updates and recovery change the real cost of self-hosting.
npm Worm Still Spreading: Check Your Servers and CI
Check servers and CI for the ChainDrop npm worm, remove token-monitor persistence before revoking secrets, and rebuild with npm install scripts restricted.
Next.js Critical RCE Bugs: Patch Your Self-Hosted App Now
Check your self-hosted Next.js app for the October security vulnerabilities, upgrade affected dependencies, rebuild, and verify the running release.
Node.js October Security Release: What to Patch and How
Check which Node.js runtime your Ubuntu server actually uses, install the October security fix, restart affected services, and verify the running process.
PHP Critical RCE Fix: Find, Patch and Restart Every Server
Find exposed PHP runtimes, install the October security fixes on Ubuntu, restart web workers, and verify that every application uses a patched runtime.
Uptime Kuma vs Gatus vs Beszel: Pick Your Monitoring
Compare Uptime Kuma, Gatus and Beszel for a small VPS fleet. Pick uptime checks or host metrics, place monitors safely, and verify alerts before relying on them.
Do You Need Kubernetes? A Small-Team Answer
Decide whether your small team needs Kubernetes, what a single VPS can handle, and which operational requirements justify moving to a managed cluster.
R2 vs B2 vs S3: Choose Your Backup Target
Compare Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2 and Amazon S3 for VPS backups, including storage overhead, recovery traffic, retention traps and practical restore checks.
Restic vs Borg vs Kopia: Choose Your Server Backup Tool
Choose Restic, Borg or Kopia for a small Ubuntu server, comparing storage targets, automation, deletion protection and the work required to restore.