Disclaimer: I’m no expert on this.

I realized recently there are two common types of Self Hosters here.

  1. 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.

  2. 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!

  • incogtino@lemmy.zipEnglish
    65·
    5 months ago
    1. On-prem
    2. Self-hosting

    And I’ll argue it’s on-prem even if you don’t have the physical server in your building

    • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
      42·
      5 months ago

      If you want some extra budget start calling it Private Cloud instead of on prem so when your bosses get calls about cloud strategies you can say we already do cloud and we don’t need their particular product.

      • shnizmuffin@lemmy.inbutts.lolEnglish
        24·
        5 months ago

        Fucking hell. Teach me more money spells, wizard.

        (I already know about Scotty Time, framing sexy upgrades as “tech debt reduction,” and fending off trendy frameworks as “lacking maturity.”)

        • satanmat@lemmy.worldEnglish
          14·
          5 months ago

          We make it a drinking game…

          Whenever a salespeople or a demo uses weasel language. DRINK!

          Thank you. I’m totally going to steal “Tech debt reduction “. Ffs

        • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          5 months ago

          I prefer technical neglect over technical debt because debt implies it is manageable where most of the time those systems are genuinely neglected due to their complexity.

      • ColeEnglish
        5·
        5 months ago

        I once heard a consultant refer to it as “The Fog” because it’s like a cloud that you’re inside of. 🤮

      • exu@feditown.comEnglish
        3·
        5 months ago

        Using whatever works better for the current project is doing Hybrid Cloud. Now your boss can brag about how modern the infrastructure is.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
      2·
      5 months ago

      Agreed, I would definitely not refer to the first one as self hosting without qualifying further.

    • peregus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Why do you distinguish on premises from self hosting? If the server is in a server farm or in my basement, I’m still hosting myself my services.

      From Wikipedia:

      Self-hosting is the practice of running and maintaining a website or service using a private web server, instead of using a service outside of someone’s own control

      A private web server is not defined by its location.

      • cron@feddit.deEnglish
        8·
        5 months ago

        I would say that “on prem” defines a location, “selfhosting” an action. You can do both at the same time, e.g. selfhosting nextcloud onprem.