I will check out that community. Seems incredibly friendly and supporting!

Proxmox is something in my distant future but regardless. I will hopefully get there eventually

That takes away a lot of stress. Knowing to just get started and ignore the best approach instead of just a getting started approach and learn as you go.

For the longest time I wanted to get rid if my google drive or google calendar and host one myself.

Email as I have read is something more advanced but I would like to self host my email as well.

Photos eventually too.

As a lot of people have recommended nextcloud that seems like where my interest might be heading.

As a starting point. Are there any hardware recommendations for a toy home server?

That seems like a sensible approach.

The whole area around selfhosting not just the deployment keeps me in somewhat of an analysis paralysis. Like what a reverse proxy is and why it is beneficial, how to set up and configure ssl and the whole area about not using a compromised service kind of keep me from starting.

Locally and not connected to the Internet might be the best way to get started and then I will hopefully someday be able to remotely use my services.

Docker seems the way to go for me now! Thank you for the nice write up.

I definitely do not now what I am doing so the word of caution is greatly appreciated!

The whole thing about remotely accessing is probably something I put on my ToDo list as soon as I get a service up and running. Nevertheless reading it and just knowing about Wireguard and Tailscale is a huge benefit to me.

Is there a personal recommendation which of your listed projects to get started with?

I am not unfamiliar with Linux.

Kind of lucky/unlucky as a broke student I did not have money to buy a new Windows machine.

Now I am kind of glad about it.

Docker on the other hand I have had barely any contact with it so far. So I definitely check that out.

Thank you! I will definitely give them a read/watch.

The hardest thing I face is the definition of small.

I struggled with the main definition of small. Thankfully there are kind people here to guide me in the right direction.

Starting with a service I do not just yet want to rely on is my main goal to build it up from there.

Thank you for sharing!

I will give it try it seems like a great starting point.