Warning! This topic is a rabbit hole. But since it keeps coming up, I'd like to share a few words about self-hosting here.

However, it's important to me that I don't want to offend anyone or hurt anyone's feelings. But over the past 1.5 years, our entire team has noticed that it's a considerable effort to explain the fundamental workings of Linux, self-hosting and the internet to people. To counter this somewhat, I'm now writing this article to provide a starting point. Help for self-help, so to speak.

Linux

Wavelog is a server application designed for Linux and only Linux is officially supported by us. Of course, there are ways to get this running natively on Windows or Mac with some effort. However, this isn't efficient and recommended since Wavelog is developed as a server application and 95% of the world's servers run Linux. That's a fact. So there will never be a "setup.exe" for Linux that takes care of everything for you. Our Docker Compose installation comes pretty close, but it's still tied to a fundamental understanding of Linux and web services.

Command Line Interface

You won't be able to avoid using the CLI. On the contrary. You should get comfortable with the idea that the command line works significantly more effectively, faster and more stable than doing everything with the mouse. There are exceptions here, of course (for example, Proxmox's UI is very good). But as soon as it comes to special services, like Wavelog, the command line is absolutely necessary to get everything up and running. Watch YouTube videos, learn with ChatGPT what the most important commands in the Linux CLI are, how they work and what exactly they do.

Self-hosting - Local or Public

Self-hosting on the local network is unproblematic in most cases. While there are things to consider here too, you're less likely to get "hacked" or expose private data. But at the latest when you want to self-host publicly, meaning the service should be normally accessible on the internet, it's absolutely necessary that you understand what you're doing. Opening ports on the local firewall isn't without danger and if you make a mistake here, you risk not only personal data but also the integrity of your own network. You have friends visiting and your friend's laptop gets hacked because you didn't understand how to safely and securely self-host things at home? That would be pretty crappy…

Understand What You're Doing

This is probably the most important point I need to address. Understand what you're doing. Why are you creating the docker-compose.yml? What exactly does the "git clone" command do? What is Apache2? And so on... If you just blindly copy things without understanding and then don't know what to do when problems arise, that's not good. When someone tries to help you but you don't know what you actually did before, it becomes a never-ending story. That's frustrating - not only for you as a user but also for the community trying to help you.
Of course, none of us were born with this knowledge and skills. Learning is part of the process. We're not talking about programming skills here - these are basic user fundamentals that anyone can learn. Even we on the development team learn something new every day. I'd also recommend checking out Techdox's video on YouTube about this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrkfeEmEHuA