Disclaimer: I’m no expert on this.
I realized recently there are two common types of Self Hosters here.
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I work in IT and host some services for my employer so we don’t have to rely on the big tech companies, for economic or other reasons.
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I self host some services at home or on a VPS, as a hobby or for other reasons, but nobody pays me to do that.
The answers people provide seem to vary greatly based on whether the commenter is in the #1 or #2 camp. I myself have gotten answers along the lines of, “why aren’t you acting more like a paid IT person?” and it’s a little off-putting.
How to resolve this? Could we refer to one group or the other differently?
Maybe I’m making a bigger deal out of this than is warranted and I’m the only one confused?
If nothing else, I will call out my hobby status from now on when posting/commenting here.
Edited to add: TIL. I’ll use these terms carefully in the future. Thanks!
I’d also split #2 further:
2a: Using a domestic DSL router and Synology NAS to run everything 2b: Has a Raspberry Pi (or 6) maybe a 2nd repurposed old PC and possibly an unmanaged switch 2c: Full height 19" rack, UPS, firewalls, managed switches, full virtualisation with SAN, redundancy and 100Gb full fibre internet
I’m somewhere between 2b and 2c
And 2d, who self host on a server/VPS they rented somewhere.
/j hey some of us only have 10GbE
Jokes aside, I get the classification. I’m pretty solidly in the category of 2c - more tech than some medium business but without the SLA to go with it.