About SelfHost Pilot

SelfHost Pilot helps you take back control of your data, one self-hosted app at a time.

Every day we find the best open-source tools and show you exactly how to run them on your own hardware. No confusing jargon, no fluff. Just clear guides that actually work.

We cover self-hosted apps, AI you can run yourself, and the skills you need to run a server like a pro.

Who is behind it?

I'm Hitesh Saini, a DevOps engineer from India. I'm self-taught — everything I know came from building, breaking and fixing real systems.

Since 2020 I've helped businesses across Europe, the US and Australia run their own infrastructure: Nextcloud, Jitsi, Matrix, BigBlueButton, Moodle, CyberPanel and more — for companies with real users depending on it. That work has earned a 5.0-star rating across 86 client reviews on Fiverr.

I started SelfHost Pilot because most tutorials are outdated, incomplete, or written for people who already know everything. I write the guides I wish I had when I started.

How we test what we publish

This is the part most sites skip, and it is the reason you can trust these guides.

Every guide here is run on our own hardware before it is published. When a post tells you a command works, we ran that command. When we say a self-hosted app replaced a paid subscription, it replaced ours. When something broke — a container that would not start, a service that died silently after a reboot — we tell you what broke and what actually fixed it, because that is the part that wastes your evening.

The same goes for the videos: the tools we cover are tools we installed and used ourselves. If we have not tested it, we do not publish it as a recommendation.

Why self-hosting?

Your files, your chats, your AI - they belong to you. When you self-host, you own the server, the data, and the decisions. No subscription creep. No 'we reserve the right to change the terms'. Just software that works for you.

Need a hand?

Want it set up for you, the right way? I do this for a living - find me on Fiverr or Upwork.