Hello all,
With all of the crapola going on in the world I asked is myself "Is there a way for me to host things that we rely on Companies to do for us today?"
Not wanting to give and send my data to big company servers for them to do whatever they want to do with it. I ended up setting up a whole ass home server that now hosts a few "replacment" services if you will. I started off with file services and then relized that there are whole social services that we can host ourselves these days.
Its awesome because there is no one trying to sell or use the data that is uploaded to the server and there are no algorithms, its just cronical sharing again
I just wanted to communicate with my family and my friends without having some big tech company tell me what I could and couldn't post as well as keeping my data private so its not sold or used by said companies for profit and in a use case that well, was not ever in my original perview of why I came to use thier services.
I think it's awesome that I can just host it, and I can share that hosting with my friends and family
Below are the services with a little detail and links for you to navigate to
Welcome and Thank you for joining me
Think of this as our own private chat app — like Messenger or WhatsApp, but totally in-house. No ads, no bots, no random friend requests. Just family.
What you can do right now:
Send one-on-one messages
Create group chats
Make voice or video calls
Later on, we'll add bigger video rooms (via Jitsi) for family game nights, celebrations, or just hanging out.
To join in, you can use Element Web in your browser (no install needed!) or grab the Element app on your phone or computer. Super easy.
Here's where we can share our snapshots and little video clips — kind of like Instagram, but just for us. You'll always see posts in the order they were shared, so no missing out on the everyday moments that matter.
And since this lives on our home server, every photo stays in the family. (Not federated yet, so we don't have to worry about outsiders popping in.)
Old-school cool, but without the junk. Everyone gets their own family email address on our server — no ads, no trackers, no creepy scanning of messages. Just simple, private email the way it used to be.
You can use it to send longer notes, attach photos, or even try out fancy HTML greetings if you're feeling creative. It's like bringing back letters for the digital age.
This is our family's very own version of Twitter — but calmer, friendlier, and way more "us." You can post quick thoughts, jokes, little life updates, or random musings, and everyone will see them in order (no algorithms messing with things).
Right now it's just private to our family (no federation yet), so it's basically a cozy group timeline with no noise, no ads, and no strangers.
Think of each app (Mastodon, PixelFed, Matrix) as a neighborhood.
When federation is off, the neighborhood gates are closed — only residents can visit. When federation is on, the gates open and people from other neighborhoods can visit and talk to us, while each neighborhood still enforces its own rules.
We can turn it on if we want. I just started with it turned off just becuase
Status: Federation is off: only people on this server can see or interact with us.