As of mid 2025, and to this day, I've taken a strong interest in hosting your own tech. From your own Netflix or iCloud to your own local AI, there's so many open source alternatives to big tech products—and it's not as expensive as you may think.

Why go local

As of recently, we've seen large corporations use their power to control free speech amongst other questionable practices. Before I continue, I must educate those who aren't familiar with the following word.

"Enshittification"
The observed decline in the quality of online platforms and services over time

As of September 2025, Disney had temporarily taken talk show host Jimmy Kimmel off-air "permanently" due to a non-harmful joke on a recent political event. Thankfully, a large group of the public decided to vote with their wallets, something we've seen work countless times. Disney had lost between $3.5 billion to $5 billion in market value from the mass cancellations of their streaming platform Disney+, which eventually resulted in Disney reinstating the show (through ABC). This only helps display how much control and how far a company is willing to go to please political views and those in power, completely disregarding viewers and any staff that are involved with said content.

We, as a collective, fund the same companies that are willing to take away wages as a result of free speech. We also fund the same companies that are increasing prices time and time again, with inclusions of ads and other limitations. Thus, enshittification.

Recently, HBO decided to reel in the media they hold the rights for to host on their own platform HBO Max—a relatively new platform for international users, creating a brand new subscription for people to hop on. Back when platforms such as Netflix allowed password sharing (and wasn't money hungry), you'd pay a simple flat fee of $15AUD~ a month for full, ad free access. Netflix has now removed their ad-free Basic plan from most regions, with Standard (with ads) being the cheapest option. All Netflix tiers have increased at least once a year since 2020 to 2025, with around a 25-35% price increase.

As of September 2025, the CEO of HBO had announced another price hike is on it's way and enforcing against password sharing would begin within the month. Though, HBO wishes to use the term enshittification to the max, by removing certain features from plans as a result of the hikes (such as live sport now requiring a higher paid plan). The Basic with Ads plan on HBO Max is priced at $9.99. The standard plan began at $15.99 in 2024, but had been increased to $16.99 in 2025. The difference? Ad free with offline downloads.

You are being charged to use the local storage on your own device and for an ad-free experience that existed before the greed had hit.

For anyone who was looking for a 4K experience, your $19.99 Premium plan from 2024 had jumped to $20.99 in 2025. (With the bonus of allowing for more locally downloaded content, just cause they can..). So what can you do about this? Believe it or not, a lot.

How-to

There's multiple ways you can host local content, movies, TV shows, you name it. Because there's so many ways, I'll only be covering my favourite and what I use. Despite what some people may say, you aren't required to buy new tech for this to work. If you have an old PC (yes, even a laptop, though not recommended), you can run your own home cloud. The software I use allows for this entire process to be much easier, requiring a single setup.

How you decide to run Umbrel is up to you—but get this. Not tech savy? That's completely fine! The people over at Umbrel created their own device that you can use like normal. Is it relatively pricey? Sure. Is it worth every cent? Yes.

The Umbrel Home runs the same operating system as DIY machines. These start at 1TB of storage (more than my 256GB Pi, and I already can't fill my storage). Though admittedly, they're pretty overkill for simple at-home media watching.

Personally, I own a Raspberry Pi 5 with a 256GB Micro SD card to store all the system data and content I wish. Wether or not you're applying this to a Pi or any other computer through DIY methods, minimal knowledge on how computers work is required—but extensive tutorials exist out in the world (YouTube) to guide you along the way. My configuration consists of:

Both devices (Umbrel Home and the Raspberry Pi 5) are capable of running the software Umbrel OS. Umbrel OS works similar to that of a regular computer, but has an app store to download certain software.

Know that you DO NOT have to use Umbrel for this process. There are other ways to run your own Plex server! Here's linus to guide you through that.

Film & TV

When it comes to hosting my own media such as movies and tv shows, the software I use is relatively user friendly, and is only a YouTube tutorial away from being understandable. This platform also has a regular viewing audience, as they provide free content for viewers.

Plex is media server hosting platform which allows you to load content directly from your device (e.g. through Umbrel or whatever device you may of installed it to directly), which can be viewed by any device on the network (or elsewhere through Plexs' paid plan, though there is ways around this). Plex is not the only software that is capable of providing such an experience, with additional features (and limitations) on other alternatives.

Since I'd rather not pay in any way shape or form, I use a 3rd party media viewer. Plex does charge users to download your content directly onto your phone/tablet etc for offline viewing.

If you wish to download any content locally, you'll need to be on the same network. Once you are, you can locally download any content that you've linked to Infuse from your Plex. Minimal knowledge on server file sharing may be required, but it's relatively easy to understand. Infuse is designed to work with more than Plex, including other forms of media servers and libraries hosted by the big companies we're attempting to get away from.

You can learn a bit more about Infuse here. Unfortunately Infuse is not on androids, but is on all Apple devices.

Music & other

Plex is also capable of hosting other forms of media, like Music, meaning you can stream your own audio files directly from their Plex AMP app instead of Spotify, Apple Music etc.

Source your content

If you have seen screenshots or videos of people with their Plex servers with notable blockbuster titles, you may be wondering where they got the content in the first place.

Yes, plex is a pirating dream. It's the perfect place to center all your content in one place. While they may not say it directly, most content hosted on Plex media servers are downloaded illegally from a source. I won't be linking any specific places of any kind, but there are countless free sources of media you can find from simple google searches paired with a little bit of digging. Who knows, even your friends may have saved sites for this type of thing. Your best bet? Ask around for any hidden gems, if not, spend a night finding a source on your own and downloading the content you prefer.

Some sources may provide a viewing experience, but not a downloading experience. There are ways around this. These files are usually of HLS format, and downloaders (such as extensions) do exist.

ALWAYS be very wary of scams & malware, especially if you use a device which is prone to attacks (Windows etc)

What else?

Hosting your own media server is just the beginning when it comes to being self sufficient with the services you use. Home technology is another large aspect of self hosting software, including regular file backups and connecting smart home devices together to form a unified system. Other niches may include hosting your own local AI to use in an assistant (or over the air for any reason, up to you).

Unfortunately the home technology is a much larger area to cover, which means this post would be essay worthy if I was to add it here.