Ethan Sholly, the driving force behind selfh.st, one of the most recognized communities uniting self-hosting enthusiasts, has published the latest results of his annual survey on the community’s preferences, collecting 4,081 responses from self-hosting practitioners worldwide.
No surprise there: Linux is overwhelmingly dominant, chosen by more than four out of five self-hosters (81%). In other words, for self-hosters operating at bare-metal, virtualised, or container-based infrastructure, Linux remains the backbone.
In fact, this result aligns closely with broader trends: according to Wikipedia, Linux holds a 63% share of global server infrastructure. Aside from the hobby aspect, most respondents said privacy was their main reason for self-hosting, which, as you know, remains one of Linux’s strongest selling points. Now, back to the numbers.
Unless you’re trying to practice with Windows server for work, I can’t think of any good reason to use it at home.
If you want a media box, windows used to be a really good option. Back when windows media center was a thing. Not so valuable now though.
Windows media center was really really good for live TV.
Yeah, it was how my family transitioned to digital TV. USB tuner stick + windows media center. And then MS killed it.
Haha, same.
Had a dual tuner pcie card.
Had a great library of recorded movies, had it all set up to rip DVDs, photos were backed up to it and a slideshow album was set as the screensaver.
I just missed the netflix integration, and there was never any decent replacement for that unfortunately.
It was glorious.