6 lightweight self-hosted apps that convinced me my old laptop's worth keeping

Published Sep 21, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT Nick Lewis is an editor at How-To Geek. He has been using computers for 20 years --- tinkering with everything from the UI to the Windows registry to device firmware. Before How-To Geek, he used Python and C++ as a freelance programmer. In college, Nick made extensive use of Fortran while pursuing a physics degree. Nick's love of tinkering with computers extends beyond work. He has been running video game servers from home for more than 10 years using Windows, Ubuntu, or Raspberry Pi OS. He also uses Proxmox to self-host a variety of services, including a Jellyfin Media Server, an Airsonic music server, a handful of game servers, NextCloud, and two Windows virtual machines. He enjoys DIY projects, especially if they involve technology. He regularly repairs and repurposes old computers and hardware for whatever new project is at hand. He has designed crossovers for homemade speakers all the way from the basic design to the PCB. Nick enjoys the outdoors. When he isn't working on a computer or DIY project, he is most likely to be found camping, backpacking, or canoeing. I recently went through my box of old computer junk and discovered an old laptop. After checking it out, I discovered it had 8GB of RAM, a slow quad-core processor, and a battery that is ready to quit after 10 minutes. I was going to drop it off for e-waste recycling, but I decided to see how many useful things I could run on it rather than get rid of it. To start, I installed a lightweight Linux distro—Debian—and then started testing different apps on it to see what the performance was like. The goal was to see Pi-hole A Pi-hole can selectively block sites on the internet from loading by blocking DNS requests before they ever leave your network. When your browser tries to load a domain associated with an ad, a tracker, or malware, the Pi-hole prevents it before it occurs. That means it can protect devices like smart TVs, smart fridges, and mobile apps that are normally very limited in their ability to install extra extensions or manage their own antivirus. Because filtering DNS requests is quite simple—it involves just comparing a requested domain to a block list—you can run a Pi-hole on almost anything, including a slow old laptop, without a major issue. I've also run one on a Pi Zero, Zero 2 W, 3b, and a 4B without an issue. It is one of the best and most useful self-hosting projects you can run, and I'd recommend everyone try it. Syncthing Private file sync with no cloud intermediary Syncthing is a peer-to-peer, encrypted file sync service that runs between your own devices. Normally, Syncthing just sends files from A to B or vice versa, but you can configure your old laptop to act as a central hub that everything syncs to. All devices on the network will sync their files to the old laptop, and so long as it is online, every other device will always be able to retrieve files from it too. In many ways, it can act like a Dropbox or Google Drive replacement without the cloud storage caps or the private concern. Remember that Syncthing is for synchronization rather than a true backup. If you delete a file on one device, that deletion will carry forward to the other devices that are syncing too. So, while it can be part of a backup solution, you need to pair it with extra software. Vaultwarden A full-featured password manager server in under 100 MB of RAM Bitwarden is a popular password manager available for most major operating systems. Under normal circumstances, you just install the client and your passwords are backed up to an official Bitwarden server. Vaultwarden is an open-source version of the Bitwarden server software that you can host yourself. It is fully compatible with all the official clients, so you can set it up and then use it as a drop-in replacement. Vaultwarden also includes many of Bitwarden's premium features, like TOTP codes and attachments, for free. Jellyfin A personal streaming service with no paywalls Jellyfin is my go-to open-source media server for movies and shows. Unlike Plex, it is entirely free. If you have an old media collection of any kind, you can set up Jellyfin, transfer the media to the server, and then stream it to any device on your network, be it a phone or a smart TV. On an old laptop, I'd specifically recommend using the direct-play feature, which disables transcoding to save CPU resources—an important consideration for an old laptop. To ensure that you don't wind up needing to transcode media, you should stick to direct-play-friendly formats or limit the number of simultaneous streams. Navidrome Your own personal Spotify or Apple Music replacement Navidrome is a media server designed specifically for music. If you have an old collection of CDs sitting around, you can copy them to your old laptop, set up Navidrome, and create your own miniature Spotify or Apple Music replacement. Navidrome does come with a basic web UI that allows you to access your Navidrome server's music without installing a dedicated app, but there are also dozens of apps available for Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS that can connect too. I use Symfonium because it integrates nicely with Android Auto. Uptime Kuma A self-hosted status page that tells you when anything else breaks Uptime Kuma is a monitoring service that occasionally pings your servers, services, and websites to ensure that they're still up and running. That sounds deceptively simple, but once you have more than a few services running on your network, manually keeping track of them all becomes a bit difficult. Uptime Kuma keeps an eye on things for you and can send you a notification via email, Discord, or even SMS whenever something goes offline. My old laptop beats a Raspberry Pi One "obsolete" laptop can not only run any of these services, it can very likely run most or all of them at once. If you're just starting out, I'd recommend trying Pi-hole and Navidrome first, as they're very easy to get working and address two very different needs. Uptime Kuma should be the next one to help you keep up with your services. After that, the only cost of these services is electricity and some maintenance. I spend about an hour a week going over everything in my self-hosted setup (which includes 20-some services now) to ensure that everything has the latest security patches and that I have a backup of the most important data.