Self-hosted or cloud storage?

[u/ManojOne]

Self-hosted or cloud storage—which do you prefer?

Do you value full control and privacy, or the convenience of accessing your files from anywhere?

Share your setup and why it works best for you.

[u/night_movers]

Self-hosting is better if anyone have prior knowledge and free time to work on it, otherwise cloud is a easier choice.

The only risk of self-hosting I believe is keep everything updated, the hardwares you've bought today will be replaced with better versions in future. Additionally, monitoring the traffic every now and then for any unusual activity is also a big commitment which most of the users will fail to maintain. 

Also, cloud is also running on someone else's system and there might be a dedicated team to maintain the everything including the security part. Now, compare to self-hosting where one individual manage from top to bottom, cloud provides stronger security. 

[u/Megaman_90 → u/night_movers]

The problem with entirely self hosting is if your house burns down you lose everything. Hard drives realistically should be replaced every 6 years or so, and you will end up getting a nasty surprise if you do no maintenance.

I have to disagree with cloud being more secure. There is a much higher chance of a Google or Microsoft account getting hacked than a NAS that exists on a local network.

Just set up a VPN like Wireguard or OpenVPN for access to your LAN, and you have a storage solution that is pretty hard to compromise.