Selfhosted
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Could someone point me to total beginner (like only used windows) self hosting primer? Don't even know what kind of machine I would need.
https://perfectmediaserver.com/ is where I got my start
Anything that runs windows can probably run Linux and work well enough for self-hosting. But you're getting ahead of yourself with worrying about hardware.
Easiest way to start is to find something that you want to try selfhosting that is relatively simple and use WSL within windows to familiarize yourself with Linux/networking/docker.
Once you're far enough along to know what your needs are, then you can start thinking about the hardware to meet those needs.
My journey:
Had some form of Linux for a long time. Either in a VM (Oracle Virtual Box, then switched to S HyperV for compatibility reasons as I had Windows Pro anyways) or sometimes as dual boot.
Then came WSL which eased some things and complicated others. What this makes really easy is to start and play around with docker containers on your PC.
Then I experimented with Linux in a VM and put docker and other software there to practice.
Up until here, there were no costs involved (besides having Windows Pro, but depending on where you get your windows key, there's not a real difference between pro and home anyways....).
After that I got my own VPS. As much as I don't like AWS, Google Cloud (GCP), Azure and such, they usually offer a very small VPS for free and these can be a good point to start. If you want to really go and host things, it can be beneficial to look for a hoster that isn't one of the big 3 cloud providers and pay for a VPS there.
For hosting at home: You could start with a raspberry pi, but looking at current prices, you usually get more flexibility and bang for the buck by buying a refurbished mini PC or repurposing an old notebook/PC. You can just put Yunohost or Proxmox on it and get going.
You can start by experimenting on your current computer. Install docker, get some service that sounds interesting, and just access it on localhost. You'll miss out on anything the service does overnight or downtime, and you won't be able to access it from off-site, but it's a fine way to wet your toes and see how it goes.
Docker: https://docs.docker.com/desktop/setup/install/windows-install/
Photo library: https://docs.immich.app/install/docker-compose/
Some maintainers even provide handy windows installers
Media library: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/installation/windows