Self-hosted Cookbook
May 13, 2026 · View on GitHub
If you're like me and love not only to self-host, but to constantly test new apps, you probably already discovered docker-compose as the fastest and easiest way towards that goal.
There is, however, one problem: not all image authors are as great as linuxserver.io, whose docs are as simple as they should be: you just copy & paste docker-compose.yml and run docker-compose up -d and IT JUST WORKS!
This is how all images should be documented!
But unfortunately, it isn't!
Sometimes you have to spend a lot of time to make it work.
Hence - this repo.
The aims is to provide a ready-to-run recipes that you can just copy, paste and run.
How to use this cookbook
- There are certain things that some recipes need which cannot be filled in due to security reasons.
example.comneeds to be replaced with your own domainusername,password, etc. - should be replaced by your username & password- keys (like
APP_KEY,SECRETetc.) should be regenerated using e.g.openssl rand -base64 32
- Not all apps have been tested & described. These are marked as 🔗 (external links).
General Information
Other self-hosted sources
Ad Blockers & local DNS
Analytics
Antivirus
Backup
- Duplicati
- Elkar Backup
- websync 🔗 - an rsync task manager, where tasks can be added, scheduled and maintained in a sane manner
Blogging & CMS
Other (not tested)
- AnchorCMS 🔗
- Bludit 🔗 - Simple, Fast, Secure, Flat-File CMS.
- Grav 🔗 - modern open source flat-file CMS.
- Hugo 🔗
- Kirby 🔗
- Metalsmith 🔗
- Pagekit 🔗
- Pelican 🔗 - Static Site Generator.
- PostLeaf 🔗
- Textpattern 🔗
- WriteFreely 🔗
Bookmarks & Read Later
- Benotes 🔗 - An open source self-hosted notes and bookmarks taking web app.
- Cherry
- Hoarder
- LinkAce
- Linkding
- linkwarden 🔗 - Another source self-hosted bookmarks manager.
- Shaarli
- Shiori
- Shaark
- Wallabag
Other
- Nunux Keeper 🔗 - similar to wallabag, but not as good (more complicated, less usable and doesn't have mobile apps).
- Reminescence 🔗 - Clean and simple. Has a DIY-Docker-Image. Buggy (archiving doesn't work half of the time).
Cloud & File Sharing
Contacts - calendars
Cookbook
- NextCloud Cookbook 🔗 - quite good. Can import from URL (some pages), but manually editing longer recipes is a bit of a pain (you need to add and paste every single ingredient & preparation step one-by-one).
- Mealie
- recipes 🔗 - a bit complex, but feature rich food processing manager for your home (from shopping to the table). Importing doesn't seem to work as good as in the NextCloud's Cookbook (for some pages at least).
Dashboard
Database
- baserow
- budibase
- SeaTable
- Dataspread 🔗 - combines the intuitiveness and flexibility of spreadsheets and the scalability and power of databases.
- Hue 🔗 - open source SQL Assistant for Databases.
- NocoDB - Open Source Airtable Alternative - turns a DB into a Spreadsheet with API.
Docker Managers
- Diun
- Doku - docker disk usage
- Portainer
- WatchTower
Document Managers
- paperless-ngx
- Papermerge 🔗 - document manager with tags & searches.
- DocSpell 🔗 - simple document organizer.
Download Managers
- CLIENTS (webmail)
- SERVERS
- Mailcow
- Mailu 🔗 - Can't send from roundcube as e.g.
username@gmail.com - Mail-in-a-box 🔗
- Mailcare 🔗 - open source disposable email address service.
- Poste.io 🔗 - doesn't allow fetching from other imap servers, keeps pushing the pro version
- Wildduck 🔗 - has app passwords, doesn't seem to have contacts or other stuff (unless you'd use e.g. Roundcube)
- SMTP Relays
- Anonymous emails - not self-hosted but important for privacy
- Reddit Thread 🔗
- burnermail.io 🔗
- anonaddy.com 🔗
- simplelogin.io 🔗
- simplelogin.io github repo 🔗
- Forward Email 🔗 - Unlimited email addresses, custom domain, catch-all, wildcard, and disposable aliases (has free and paid plans).
- KaiMail 🔗 - Email forwarding for custom domains with ARC/DKIM signing, SMTP sending, and webhook delivery (has free and paid plans).
- Tools
GIT
- Gitea
- GitLab 🔗
- Gogs 🔗
- Phabricator 🔗
Home Automation
- HomeAssistant
- Homebridge
- n8n - excellent automation platform.
Other (not tested)
- Beehive 🔗 - flexible event/agent & automation system
- Huginn 🔗 - Create agents that monitor and act on your behalf.
- Node-RED 🔗 - Low-code programming for event-driven applications
- Kibitzr 🔗 - Personal Web Assistant
Media Managers
- Alternatrr 🔗 - alternative titles for Sonarr
- Audiobookshelf - audiobooks
- Bazarr - subtitles
- Calibre - e-books
- Deemix - music
- Issued 🔗 - comic reader & manager
- Jackett - search engine proxy/adapter
- Jellyfin - watch movies & shows almost everywhere!
- Kavita - like plex for ebooks & comics
- Komga - comics
- Navidrome - music streaming server
- Plex - watch movies & shows everywhere!
- Radarr - movies
- Readerr - ebooks & comics
- Sonarr - tv shows
- Tautulli - dashboard for Plex
- Ubooquity 🔗 - another Ebook & Comics server. Didn't work properly.
Apps for Youtube
- Invidious - Privacy-focused YT Proxy interface
- Metube - youtube-dl webUI
- TubeArchivist - youtube-dlp - based
- YoutubeDL-web - youtube-dl webUI
- YoutubeDL-material - youtube-dl webUI
Monitors
Self-hosted
Other, not-fully tested
- Staytus 🔗 - service status is updated manually!
- cstate 🔗 - weird...
- Glances 🔗 - resource hog
- Netdata 🔗 - lots of stuff, nothing relevant
- LibreNMS 🔗 - ugly
Useful links
Notes
Notifications
- Notifiers by service - comparison table
- Pushover
- Synology-sms-relay
- Synology-notifications 🔗 - similar to the above - works with Slack (and potentially Discord)
Other
- apprise 🔗
- Synapse 🔗
- Gotify 🔗 - notification server
- pushover 🔗
- unifi event monitor 🔗
Other services
- bitwarden_rs
- Brave sync server
- change-detection
- Cockpit
- Code server
- Crowdsec
- Firefox sync server
- Firefox
- FlareSolverr
- LanguageTool server
- Ntfy
- OpenSpeedTest
- Owntracks location tracker
- Penpot
- Traccar location tracker
- VPN client
- Windows
Photos
- Comparison table
- Chevereto
- LibrePhotos
- Lychee
- Pigallery2
- Piwigo
- Pixelfed
- PhotoPrism
- PhotoStructure
- PhotoView
Other tested
- PhotoShow 🔗 - seems dead and doesn't work.
- Photosync 🔗 - paid, app, not really self-hosted, just sync.
- OwnPhotos 🔗 - limited features, ugly & dead.
- FileStash 🔗 - old-time-dropbox-like file manager.
Untested
Project Management
- Jira
- Kanboard
- Kaneo
- OpenProject
- Planka
- Vikunja
- Wekan
- Taskcafe 🔗 - early stage, active development.
- YouTrack 🔗 - The project management tool designed for agile teams (from JetBrains).
Reverse proxy & SSO
- Authelia
- Caddy 🔗 - very good web server with reverse-proxy & automatic https.
- lldap 🔗 - simple ldap implementation with a nice UI.
- nginx-proxy-manager
- Traefik
RSS
- Miniflux
- Miniflux-filter
- FreshRSS 🔗 - second best :-)
- RSS to telegram bot
RSS Tools
- PolitePol 🔗 - Create RSS where there was none
- FetchRSS 🔗 - Create RSS for FB, Twitter, YT, and websites
- rss-bridge- The RSS feed for websites missing it
- rss2full 🔗 - Transform summary feeds into full-text
- rsshub - Create RSS feeds from almost everything
Search engines
Social
Other untested
- HumHub 🔗 - Free social network software and framework.
- Snikket 🔗 - Chat that is simple, secure, and private.
- Jami 🔗 - Audio & video calls, screen sharing, IM.
Wiki
Other
- Pepperminty Wiki 🔗 - wiki engine contained in a single file. Doesn't seem to have a structured navigation (tree-like menu). Subpages are supported though.
- Wreeto 🔗 - impossible to install
- Outline 🔗 (Original docker was impossible to use. This one allegedly works.) - It looks cool, but requires Slack to use...
- Gollum 🔗 - A simple, Git-powered wiki with a sweet API and local frontend.