📅 This Week at SelfVPS

Welcome to the first edition of the SelfVPS Weekly Roundup! This week we published three in-depth guides covering the three biggest pain points in the self-hosting world: workflow automation, open-source AI deployment, and cloud cost optimization. This article distills everything into an essential digest, plus adds the hottest self-hosted projects trending in the community this week.

🥇 Top 5 Self-Hosted Tools This Week

1️⃣ N8N — The King of Open-Source Workflow Automation

Read the full guide: N8N Deployment Guide

N8N is this week’s most-read tool. Dubbed the “open-source Zapier,” it supports 400+ integrations — from Slack and Gmail to GitHub and Discord.

Cost Comparison:

Bottom line: If you run more than 1,000 workflow tasks per month, self-hosting N8N saves you $360+ in the first year alone.

2️⃣ LocalAI — Private LLM Inference

Read the full guide: Deploying Open-Source AI Tools

LocalAI is a fully OpenAI API-compatible, open-source alternative. Deploy it, and simply replace api.openai.com in your code with your own server address.

# One-line LocalAI launch
docker run -p 8080:8080 --name localai \
  -v $PWD/models:/build/models \
  localai/localai:latest

Why LocalAI over ChatGPT?

3️⃣ Ollama — Easiest LLM Runner

If LocalAI feels too complex, Ollama is the ultimate “batteries included” option:

# Install Ollama
curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

# Run Mistral 7B in seconds
ollama run mistral

Ollama has exploded in popularity — now 150K+ GitHub Stars. It supports 100+ models from 3B to 70B parameters.

4️⃣ Uptime Kuma — Self-Hosted Monitoring Dashboard

Uptime Kuma is a beautiful, feature-rich self-hosted uptime monitor that’s been trending hard this week.

# One-click deploy with Docker Compose
version: '3.8'
services:
  uptime-kuma:
    image: louislam/uptime-kuma:latest
    container_name: uptime-kuma
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"
    volumes:
      - uptime_kuma_data:/app/data

volumes:
  uptime_kuma_data:

Vs. Commercial Alternatives:

5️⃣ Vaultwarden — Lightweight Password Manager

A Rust implementation of Bitwarden that’s 10x lighter than the official server — runs on just 256MB RAM.

docker run -d --name vaultwarden \
  -v /vw-data/:/data/ \
  -p 80:80 \
  vaultwarden/server:latest

Resource savings: Compared to the official Bitwarden self-hosted edition (needs 2GB+ RAM), Vaultwarden uses 1/10th the resources.

💰 Cost-Saving Highlights

Hetzner — Best Bang for Your Buck in 2026

Key data from our VPS cost-saving guide:

The annual cost gap is staggering:

• Hetzner 2 vCPU / 4GB: €4.15 × 12 = €49.80/year
• DigitalOcean equivalent: $24 × 12 = $288/year
• Difference: 5.8x more expensive

Three Golden Rules of Cloud Savings

1. Pick the right provider: Hetzner’s 4 vCPU / 8GB at €8.85/mo runs N8N + LocalAI + Ollama + Uptime Kuma simultaneously without breaking a sweat
2. Consolidate with Docker: Run multiple services on one VPS to maximize resource utilization
3. Match pricing to usage: Stable traffic → fixed plan. Spikey traffic → pay-as-you-go

🛠 Weekly DevOps Tips

1. Manage Everything with a Unified Docker Compose

# Unified management for all your self-hosted services
version: '3.8'
services:
  n8n:
    extends:
      file: ./n8n/docker-compose.yml
      service: n8n
  ollama:
    image: ollama/ollama:latest
    container_name: ollama
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "11434:11434"
    volumes:
      - ollama_data:/root/.ollama
  uptime-kuma:
    extends:
      file: ./uptime-kuma/docker-compose.yml
      service: uptime-kuma

volumes:
  n8n_data:
  ollama_data:
  uptime_kuma_data:

2. Automated Backup Script

#!/bin/bash
# Weekly auto-backup for all Docker data
BACKUP_DIR="/backups/$(date +%Y-%m-%d)"
mkdir -p $BACKUP_DIR

# Backup all Docker volumes
for volume in $(docker volume ls -q); do
  docker run --rm -v $volume:/data -v $BACKUP_DIR:/backup \
    alpine tar czf /backup/${volume}.tar.gz -C /data .
done

# Keep last 30 days only
find /backups -type d -mtime +30 -exec rm -rf {} \;

3. Monitor Resource Usage

# Check all container resource usage
docker stats --no-stream

# Install Netdata — one-command monitoring
bash <(curl -Ss https://my-netdata.io/kickstart.sh)

🔮 Coming Next Week

💬 Final Thoughts

The self-hosted ecosystem is thriving. This week we saw how N8N can replace Zapier and save 95%+ on workflow costs, how LocalAI and Ollama make private AI truly accessible, and how a €4.15/mo Hetzner VPS can run it all.

It’s not about having many tools — it’s about having the right ones. One VPS + Docker + the right open-source tools are all you need to build infrastructure that rivals any SaaS solution.

Got a tool you’d like us to cover? Reach out — we read every suggestion. See you next Sunday! 👋

Published on SelfVPS Guide. Share freely — knowledge wants to be free.