It’s never a bad time to think about saving money, and self-hosting your own software is a great place to start. With the help of my always-on Raspberry Pi, I’m hoping to buck trends and avoid subscriptions by hosting the following projects on my own.
Nextcloud
I’ve been an iCloud subscriber since I first ran out of Apple’s complimentary space, back when smartphones were tiny, and 5GB seemed like a lot of storage. I’m all-in on the 2TB plan now, and though I have 75% of my plan remaining, I’ve been eyeing up other cloud storage plans recently. iCloud safeguards devices like my iPhone, stores precious photo and video memories, and even keeps my Home Assistant backups safe, but it’s not exactly easy to use on other platforms.
Right now, I’m really feeling that pinch on Raspberry Pi OS itself, and though my demands for space aren’t astronomical, I’m looking to add some space that I can share broadly among the many platforms I use, from macOS to Windows and Linux distros like SteamOS. That’s where Nextcloud comes in. Though the name is heavily associated with enterprise-level collaboration and sharing, Nextcloud Hub is a suite of free tools that makes it possible to self-host your own cloud storage, host video conferences, work on documents, and run your own calendar.
Personally, I’m only in it for the cloud storage, but I’ll take the rest as a nice added bonus. Installation is pretty breezy thanks to the wealth of options listed over at NextcloudPi, which include bare metal installs, ProxMox virtual machine images, and a Debian single-line installation command that should work just fine on Raspberry Pi OS.
Vaultwarden
I’m still using Apple’s Passwords app to store and sync my credentials but, much like iCloud Drive, this presents issues when it comes to syncing credentials to non-Apple devices. The answer here is to use another password manager, like Bitwarden. Though I’m not planning to switch entirely, I figure storing some of the frequently accessed logins I need and rarely change shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.
Vaultwarden is an unofficial community-led Bitwarden server for storing passwords and other credentials securely and syncing them between the devices that you might need to access them on. The project is under active development, and runs via a Docker or Podman container with only a few lines of code necessary to get up and running. It’s well-suited to the Raspberry Pi on account of being lightweight.
Rather than paying a premium to access my own passwords on non-Apple devices on the odd occasion I actually need them, Vaultwarden lets me host them for free.
Audiobookshelf
I listen to too many podcasts and watch too many long-form YouTube videos, but I don’t read enough books. The answer to this conundrum is to meet my social media-addled brain halfway and listen to more audiobooks instead. It’s the immediacy of the information fix that has me reaching for my AirPods in the first place, after all.
I own a handful of audiobooks already, but I’m still building up my collection. I’m very keen to explore DRM-free options, and that includes using a robust platform that’s accessible on as many devices as possible. That’s why I’m going with Audiobookshelf, an open-source audiobook server that’s accessed via a web interface in your browser. Like similar applications in this space, it’s easy to deploy on Raspberry Pi OS as a Docker container.
Though there’s an Android app already available, the official Audiobookshelf iPhone client is still in closed beta. Thankfully, there’s an elegant alternative in the form of ShelfPlayer ($6) available for Apple users.
Navidrome
I’m a relatively happy Apple Music subscriber, and I have no real desire to cancel any time soon. But I also have a collection of weird things that aren’t on Apple Music, B-sides, demos, live recordings, and other recordings that feel like they’re stranded on an old hard drive. If only there were a way I could enjoy that music with the ease of a service like Spotify…
Thankfully, that’s exactly what Navidrome is. I’m going to use it to import all of my old MP3 and FLAC files, but also integrate newer purchases from smaller artists on storefronts like Bandcamp. There’s a beautiful free app called flo for listening on an iPhone, while I can use a browser or a dedicated app on Mac, Windows, or Linux machines.
Navidrome can be installed via a Docker container or using an ARM64 Debian release on Raspberry Pi OS directly.
Firefly III
Credit: Adam Davidson/How-To Geek
The other smart way to save money is to make a budget and stick with it. Unfortunately, a lot of budgeting software costs money, and even though it is possible to spend money in the pursuit of saving even more money, this can feel a bit counterintuitive (especially when you’re just starting out).
Thankfully, Firefly III is a completely free and open-source self-hosted budgeting app. You can easily deploy it on your Raspberry Pi using a Docker container, after which you can access the tool using a standard web browser. How-To Geek’s Adam Davidson is using Firefly III to save $150 per year, though they admit it’s not entirely free since they’re paying around $3 for a Lunch Flow cron job to import transactions from their bank’s API directly into the budgeting app.
Still, compared to the alternatives, this is cheap. Just make sure you back up your data regularly, and keep a redundant copy in the cloud.
While these projects can help you save money by dropping existing subscriptions, I’m using them to avoid taking on new ones. While we’re on the topic of open-source software and money, take a look at a few free projects that I’d happily open my wallet for.
