I have run my own site, on my own domain (with email!) since 1994. The domain was lost and recaptured in 1998, so I suppose by the registrar, since 1998...

I go through spurts of updating and then not updating it. Some parts of this article resonate with me... is it worth it? Does anyone care? Will anyone ever see it? At the same time, if you view it as an item for ones self, then all of those pressures go away.

I think people do not realize the power they have (or they always make it out to be a much larger problem than it is) to run ones own server (perhaps both web and email). Before you flame, I have been setting up web/email for decades, and there are plenty of online tutorials (I wrote a few). The real point is that even with a little effort, the rewards are interesting. It is not for everyone, but I think the DIY spirit has a place here (in web pages and personal systems on the net).

Sorry for rambling, I feel compelled to say something... so many comments in other threads turn into "you can never keep up with a web or email server". I feel this person needs kudos for showing that it is really not too difficult.

Hi readingnews, I see the benefits of creating your running your own site/blog/bliki/digital-garden on a hosted or even your own server. You can tweak and make it into whatever you want. But what's the joy or reward of running your own mail server? I can imagine the feeling of being independent. But I imagine it also creates a bit of stress in keeping the email server running, spam free and secure?

Not having to deal with rate limits or weirdness in regards to delivering mail from software in an automated manner, which would be there with any of the other "big" hosts.

For example, currently i have the following hooked up to a self-hosted e-mail server:

  - Nextcloud/ownCloud
  - Mattermost/Rocket.Chat
  - Drone CI/GitLab
  - OpenProject
  - PeerTube
  - SonarQube
  - Zabbix

If i use my own self-hosted mail server, then there are no odd spam filters or whatever to deal with (unless i introduce my own) - i send as many messages as i need and i receive all of them as well, plus all of the data stays wherever i want it to. This is also relevant for older software that might have problems with the more secure methods of delivering mails.

Oh and there's not a lot to think about, pricing wise, either.

Lastly, running a basic mail server is exceedingly simple with https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver No need to manually configure mail delivery agents or whatever. In my eyes, a mail server with everything it needs should be a single executable/container, with toggleable bits of functionality, rather than some overcomplicated amalgamation of mixed and matched pieces that would need lots of your time to maintain.