Guide · Software

The free pick and the paid one, for every home server job

Updated October 2026. No affiliate links on this page. I don't earn anything from any service listed here.

The point of a home server is owning your stuff instead of renting it, so my default is always the free, open-source, self-hosted tool. Self-hosting is also work, and sometimes a paid service is the better choice, like when reliability matters more than control or you don't want one more thing to maintain.

Here's both options for each common job, and when paying makes sense.

Words you'll see in this guide

Self-hosting: running an app on your own hardware at home instead of paying a company to run it for you.
Open source: software whose code is public, so anyone can check it, use it, and usually run it for free.
End-to-end encrypted: your data is locked before it leaves your device, so the company storing it can't read it.
VPN: a private, encrypted tunnel between devices over the internet.
3-2-1 backup: three copies of your data, on two kinds of storage, with one copy somewhere other than your house.
Transcoding: converting a video on the fly so it plays smoothly on a phone or TV that can't handle the original file.

See the full glossary

Media streaming

Free: Jellyfin. Paid: Plex Pass.

Jellyfin: completely free and open source, including hardware transcoding, with no subscription. It's my default.
Plex: more polished, with better smart TV apps and easier sharing with family. Hardware transcoding and streaming your media away from home need a paid Plex Pass.

Pay for Plex only if the nicer apps and family sharing really matter to you. Either way, you'll want Intel Quick Sync for smooth transcoding.

Visit Jellyfin Visit Plex Pass

Photo backup

Free: Immich. Paid: Ente, iCloud, or Google Photos.

Immich: a self-hosted Google Photos replacement that has become excellent. Automatic phone backup, face recognition, and a good app, all free.
Ente: an end-to-end encrypted paid service from the same open-source world. iCloud and Google Photos are the mainstream paid options.

Self-host if you want to own your library. Pay if you want zero maintenance and an off-site copy without building it yourself.

Visit Immich Visit Ente

Password manager

Free: Vaultwarden. Hosted: Bitwarden or 1Password.

Vaultwarden: a lightweight self-hosted server that works with all the official Bitwarden apps. Free, and it runs on the weakest box in my guides.
Bitwarden: its hosted version has a free plan, plus a premium plan for a small yearly fee.
1Password: the most polished paid option, with good family sharing.

If self-hosting your passwords makes you nervous, that's a reasonable feeling. This is one job where a hosted service is easy to justify.

Visit Bitwarden Visit 1Password

Remote access

Free: Tailscale, WireGuard, or Cloudflare Tunnel. Paid: a commercial VPN.

These solve different problems, so it's worth getting this one right.

Tailscale (generous free tier) and WireGuard (free) link your devices privately, so they reach your server from anywhere. This is what you want for a home lab.
Cloudflare Tunnel (free) lets you reach a web app at home without opening ports on your router. It's how I reach the AI server at my house when I'm out.
A commercial VPN like NordVPN hides your browsing from your internet provider and gets around region locks. That's a privacy tool, not a way into your server.

Get Tailscale or a tunnel for your server. Get a commercial VPN only if you separately want its privacy features. More in how to access your home server remotely.

Visit Tailscale

Off-site backup

Free: your own drive. Paid: Backblaze.

Local backups are free, but the 3-2-1 rule needs one copy outside your house, and that's where paying makes sense.

Backblaze B2: very cheap cloud storage that most self-hosted backup tools support out of the box.
Backblaze Personal: backs up a whole computer for a flat yearly fee.

This is the one subscription almost every serious self-hoster ends up paying for. A fire or a burglary takes out your local drives together. Here's why RAID isn't a backup.

Visit Backblaze

Network ad blocking

Free: Pi-hole or AdGuard Home. Paid: NextDNS.

Pi-hole and AdGuard Home block ads for every device on your network and run on almost anything. Free, and usually the first thing people install.
NextDNS is the hosted version of the same idea. Nothing to run, and it keeps working on mobile data away from home, for a small yearly fee.

Self-host if you already have a box running. Pay for NextDNS if you want it to follow your phone everywhere with no setup.

Visit Pi-hole Visit NextDNS

My rule: start with the free tool in every row. Pay only where it's worth it for most people:

Off-site backup, like Backblaze.
A hosted password manager, if self-hosting your passwords worries you.

Self-host everything else and keep your money.

How this site makes money

Nothing on this page earns me anything, and I'd recommend the free tools first even if it did. Elsewhere on the site, Amazon affiliate links on hardware guides keep it free to read. I won't tell you to pay for something a free option handles just as well. You'd stop trusting me, and the site only works if you can.

Your next step: pick hardware to run all this with the under-$300 mini PC guide, then follow the self-hosting starter stack.