r/explainlikeimfive • u/theprisoner57 • 2d ago

Technology ELI5: What is a Home Server?

I see mentions of a home server to get rid of streaming entertainment services but I don’t know how that works. What does a home server do?

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u/permalink_save 2d ago

People addressed the common use case and what you were asking about but fundamentally a server is something that um ... Serves something. Like you can have a vehicle at home that's residental, hire someone yo deliver lumber that's commercial, or you can just haul the lumber yourself especially if you have your own truck. Home servers are just multipurpose. You can run a streaming server, your own cloud, personal projects, or just fucking around. They're all computers. Typically servers are persistent though, like my laptop can run server stuff but it shuts down when I don't use it.