Self-hosting is having a moment. Between rising SaaS costs and growing privacy concerns, more developers are running their own tools. Here are 12 open-source, self-hosted tools across different categories that are actually worth setting up.
I found these while building IndieStack, a directory of indie-built software. All of these are free and built by solo developers or small teams.
Email & Newsletters
LetterSpace
Self-hosted open-source newsletter platform. Run your own Substack on your own server.
Monitoring
Ciao
HTTP health checks and URL monitoring. Dead simple, self-hosted. Set up uptime checks in minutes without paying for Pingdom or UptimeRobot.
Project Management
Tasks.md
A Markdown-based task management board. If you love Markdown and hate bloated project tools, this is for you. Kanban-style, runs anywhere.
Payments
Bitcart
Self-hosted payment processor for BTC, LTC, ETH, USDT and more. Accept crypto payments without any third-party service taking a cut.
Finance & Expenses
ExpenseOwl
Extremely simple, self-hosted expense tracker with a clean UI. No spreadsheets, no over-engineered apps. Just track what you spend.
Hisabi
Personal finance tracking with SMS transaction parsing. Auto-imports transactions from your bank SMS notifications. Clever and privacy-friendly.
Invoicing
Invoice Ninja
Free invoicing, expenses, and time-tracking for freelancers. Self-host the full app or use their hosted version. One of the most mature open-source invoicing tools out there.
File Sharing
Flare
Modern self-hosted file sharing platform with ShareX support. Upload files, get shareable links. Clean UI, fast, no tracking.
Customer Feedback
Fider
Open-source customer feedback platform. Let users submit and vote on feature requests. Self-host your own Canny or UserVoice.
Domain Management
Domain Locker
All-in-one tool for keeping track of your domain name portfolio. If you are a domain hoarder (no judgment), this organizes everything.
CRM
NextCRM
Open-source CRM with projects, invoicing, email and AI features. Built with Next.js. A solid Salesforce alternative for small teams.
Accounting
ERPSaaS
Laravel and Filament-powered accounting with full double-entry bookkeeping. If you need real accounting software you can self-host, this is it.
Why Self-Host These?
- Free forever - no surprise pricing changes
- Your data stays yours - no analytics company mining your customer data
- Customizable - fork and modify to fit your workflow
- Reliable - no vendor going bankrupt or getting acquired
All of these tools are cataloged on IndieStack alongside 100+ other indie-built alternatives. If you are tired of paying enterprise prices for things a solo dev built a better version of, check it out.
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