After self-hosting everything, here's what I still pay for and why it's worth it

Published Jul 25, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT Korbin is a Linux system administrator who spends most of his time in a terminal figuring out how things actually work. Over the last decade he's written hundreds of articles about Linux configuration, troubleshooting weird problems, and using open-source tools in the real world. He also works a lot with Windows systems and networking, especially in mixed environments where things don't always behave the way the documentation says they should. Writing things down is how he makes sense of it all and hopefully saves someone else a few hours. When I first got into home labbing, I treated every subscription like it was a personal challenge. I started by eliminating some of the easy ones, like Google Photos and Spotify, then moved on to Netflix, Dropbox, and others. As long as a self-hosted alternative exists, my instinct is to kill the subscription and prove that I didn't need it. That mentality has stuck with me ever since, and now I've replaced the most common services. Immich handles my photos, Nextcloud replaced Google Drive, Jellyfin serves my music, and Plex is good for movies and TV. Even with all these self-hosted replacements, there are a few cloud services that survived the purge, and it's not simply because I haven't gotten around to it. There are a handful of online services that are difficult to replicate with a self-hosted setup, and some that I'd rather just continue paying for than go through the rigmarole of migrating to something else. I'm all for DIY setups, but not if it's to my own detriment. That's why I have four cloud services that I'm still shelling out money for. Email is the one thing I'll always refuse to host It seems so simple until you actually try it I have a domain name that I use for a personal website and to access some of my self-hosted services. There's no choice but to pay for the domain name, but a matching email address that bears the same name is free, unless you want someone else to handle it. I quickly found out that hosting my own email server is not worth saving a few bucks a month. Major email providers use reputation-based filtering, so email sent from a residential IP with little history looks like spam. Even with everything configured perfectly, my emails were constantly being flagged and sent to recipients' spam folder. I fork over a few bucks to Google to host the email instead, and I don't need to think about it. It's easy to access and gets the usual Gmail features. Email is an important resource that I rely on for everything, from password resets to job applications. I don't need the stress that happens when my email server breaks and I suddenly can't send or receive anything. Cloud AI's reasoning power can't be beat Local models only work well for simple tasks I actually do self-host local AI models, and I've even made them accessible from the public internet by adding them to my tailnet. However, I'm still reaching for ChatGPT for general tasks and Claude for coding tasks, but only when I need a model that can do some heavy reasoning. Most months, I can get away with just using the free tier of cloud AI models. But if I have an especially complex project, sometimes I'll cave in and throw 20 bucks at Claude to get a month of Pro usage. Depending on what you use AI for and how powerful your computer is, it might be possible to get by strictly with local models. Usually, I do fine with them. Local AI handles most of the things I ask it for, and my home server is nothing special in the hardware department. Someday, when local models finally close the gap with cloud AI better than they currently do, I'd love to stop using them completely. An offsite backup is a must-have for important files Your NAS by itself is an incomplete backup strategy I follow the 3-2-1 rule religiously: three copies, two types of media, one offsite. The first two parts of the rule are easy when self-hosting, since all you need is a second drive or a spare machine. The third one is more complicated and arguably the most important. An offsite copy of your files will survive a fire, theft, or ransomware. I rent a storage VPS for $9 per month, and it gives me 3TB of storage, which is enough space for all my irreplaceable files. It comes with SSH and root access, so I just include a line in my rsync script that sends my files over there. This subscription can be eliminated if you strike a deal with your buddy to host each other's offsite backups on the other person's NAS, but I don't have that luxury right now. Tailscale's VPN is worth paying for Even though the free tier is probably enough This one doesn't actually cost me any money right now, but it will if I add any additional users to my tailnet, and that time is probably coming soon. Right now, though, the Personal plan's limit of six users is suiting me just fine. Tailscale provides an invaluable service for my array of self-hosted services, as it allows me (and a few others) to access my home network privately and securely from over the internet. Tailscale runs on WireGuard, which you can certainly host yourself. But that requires a lot of careful configuration, router settings, and security considerations. With the number of services I have running, a VPN is essential. Otherwise, I have to expose each one to the public internet, and I'd rather not contend with the risks that entails. Tailscale makes all those worries disappear, and it took about five minutes to get it all up and running. Even if the current free plan cost money, I'd happily pay it. Some things are worth outsourcing None of these four services contradict my self-hosting philosophy. Most of them just make it easier for me to self-host services by filling the gaps my setup can't easily cover. I'm okay with admitting that sometimes there's no simple DIY answer to certain services, and it's better to delegate that responsibility to cloud counterparts.