This site runs at my place, not at someone else's

9 October 2026infrastructuretraefikself-hosting

Content created with the help of AI

The question I get most: “Why not just use a hosting platform?” Here is the actual answer.

What “at home” means concretely

• The content is written in markdown, committed to the repository.
• Astro compiles everything into static files.
• Docker Compose orchestrates two containers: the site and Traefik.
• Traefik handles reverse proxying, HTTPS and Let’s Encrypt certificates, by itself.

No CMS, no SaaS. If it runs, it’s because I maintain it. That’s what “engineer” means to me.

The engineering reason

Using my own stack is the cheapest possible rehearsal environment for the problems I solve at work every day: reproducibility, resilience, observability — with the added pressure that the “client” is me and my family.

A platform would hide every layer I’m training to master. Hosting it myself means every layer shows up eventually.

The honest trade-offs

When my internet connection fails, so does the site. When a disk wears out, I replace it. Those are real risks — weighed against the value of owning the whole chain, they are acceptable.

The alternative (a free hosting tier for a personal page) would cost almost nothing too. But then I’d be a user, not an operator. This site exists to show the difference.