Your help needed: PhD research on why people choose to self-host
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i smoked some good weed like half an hour ago, do i need to wait
Uploaded your mind to the cloud
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That’s a very valid concern, and you’re absolutely right to bring it up.
One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users, which means that in order to get enough self-hosters from the general population for meaningful analysis, we’d need a very large sample.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding or resources to conduct such large-scale research through a representative panel or agency. That’s why this study is focusing on communities where self-hosting is already discussed, like this one.
That said, we’re definitely aware of this limitation, and we’re also sharing the survey in broader, more general-interest online communities where we expect non-self-hosters (or people unfamiliar with the concept) to be more present. This will allow us to include comparisons between the two groups in the analysis.
Really appreciate your thoughtful comment — thanks!
One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
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Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.
Just to clarify: the statement "I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible" is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.
If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.
From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.
That said, I really appreciate your feedback!
Be prepared for some respondents to choose the middle option as a proxy for "not applicable," because that's what I did.
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One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
Yeah, it surprised me too! If you want to read more about it, check out the paper titled "Towards Privacy and Security in Private Clouds: A Representative Survey on the Prevalence of Private Hosting and Administrator Characteristics" by Gröber et al. (2024).
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Uploaded your mind to the cloud
nah, we smoke the cloud like ops
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Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.
Just to clarify: the statement "I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible" is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.
If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.
From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.
That said, I really appreciate your feedback!
Yeh, I took "don't agree or disagree" to be the N/A.
It seemed the most neutral.
I don't really use anything for bookmark sharing/management. So I don't strongly disagree or strongly agree with self hosting it. -
Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
I have answered, and had to put "Other" in employment status because I am self employed. An option for self employment would have been useful in my opinion!
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Yeah, it surprised me too! If you want to read more about it, check out the paper titled "Towards Privacy and Security in Private Clouds: A Representative Survey on the Prevalence of Private Hosting and Administrator Characteristics" by Gröber et al. (2024).
Thanks for the source, super interesting read! I would've guessed 1-5% as well.
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Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
I added my answers. Good luck on your thesis!
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I have answered, and had to put "Other" in employment status because I am self employed. An option for self employment would have been useful in my opinion!
Thank you for your feedback!
You're right, self-employment could be listed more clearly, but choosing “Other” was absolutely fine and your response is fully valid. Thanks again! -
I added my answers. Good luck on your thesis!
Thanks a lot for your input and kind wishes, really appreciate it!
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Done. Hope it helps.
Thanks, really appreciate it!
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Be prepared for some respondents to choose the middle option as a proxy for "not applicable," because that's what I did.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I chose the middle option for things I'm not hosting, but could see myself hosting in the future.
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Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Did my part! Good luck!
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One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
I suspect there's a tendency of experts in something to think of people who do it narrowly as people doing at least as much as they are.
The people who have a bunch of docker services, or complex multi-machine infrastructure are self-hosted software users, and probably in that 1-2% range. People who heard piholes are useful, so they bought a pi 3 and set it up are self-hosted software users. Somebody using an old desktop they got on Facebook marketplace for running Plex media are self-hosted software users.. and so on. So are the people in their houses, some of their friends and family.
Using that inclusive definition, being closer to 10% than 1% makes sense to me.
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Did my part! Good luck!
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Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.
Just to clarify: the statement "I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible" is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.
If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.
From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.
That said, I really appreciate your feedback!
I get why you're taking that approach but you risk serious misclassification bias. The replies have stated people are using both "disagree" and "neither agree nor disagree" to indicate they are not hosting a particular kind of service. From your description of your research it sounds like disagree and strongly disagree should indicate that the individual uses company hosted services instead of self hosted services for those domains. The relationship between views on privacy and types of services self hosted is going to be confounded by that.
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One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users
Wow! That's a lot higher than I would've expected. My guess would've been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]My guess is that it also included things like the 12 year old hosting a Minecraft server for their friends. Which, to be clear, is a totally valid self-hosting use case.
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Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
I did it for ya....good luck with your phd
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Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=lsThis study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Good luck on the thesis and I hope my data points can assist your research! I'm sure the community would love to see your finished thesis when it is done
