Self-Host Me, Self-Host Me Not

I like to self-host my services. From wiki to VPN to media server, I operate them all myself. Some run on machines that reside on my home network. Some run on virtual private servers (VPS) in a data center that I lease by the month. When I can, I self-host. But there are some things that I don’t self-host, and I gladly pay somebody else to handle them. Let me tell you what they are and why. I don't do sponsored content. The commercial services mentioned in this post are here because I use them and like them. Email From time to time, I’ll see people post guides to make it easy to set up your own mail server. Whenever I see one of these posts I want to light my hair on fire and scream, “Don’t do it!” I’m not afraid of email. I’ve been running mail servers from before the modern Internet was a thing. I designed and built the email system for an ISP that, around the turn of the century, was one of the largest in the world. I worked with the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS), which…