Do you have any advice or suggestions about it?
- Hardware (what should be enough for a local PC, or VPS…)
- Software (OS [Debian, Yunohost, other…], “containerization” (Docker, virtual machines?), dashboard, management, backups, VPN tunneling…)
- “Utilities” to host (Lemmy, Peertube, Matrix, Mastodon, Actual Budget, Jellyfin, Forgejo, Invidious/Piped, local Pi-Hole, email, dedicated videogame servers like for Minecraft, SearXNG, personal file storage like Drive, AI [in the future, when I can afford a rig that can run a local model decently]…)
I’m aware it’s a lot of stuff to take on, so, do you have any advice on where to start? (how to find a cheap PC to experiment with, if not get a VPS, what to test on it, what “utilities” to try self-hosting first…)


I’ve been through this whole process and wanted to make the best choice and explore all options myself. In the end my conclusion ended up being what most people online recommended after all: keep NAS and compute separate and that Debian is best for a Linux server. Now I have a Synology NAS and a 12th gen Intel mini PC. I run most of what you mention above and it works great.
I spent ages looking at so many sources to learn and get this set up. After I got it all done, I found this is one simple guide that basically covered the whole process and I really with O found this early: https://thecybersecguru.com/tutorials/self-hosting-guide/