Self-Hosting vs Managed: The Real Cost Comparison
Self-hosting advocates say “it’s only €5/month.” Managed hosting proponents say “your time is worth more.” Both are oversimplifying.
Let’s do the actual math — counting hardware costs, tooling costs, and the value of admin time at different scales.
The Self-Hosting Budget
Start with a typical FOSS project self-hosting stack:
| Item | Cost/month |
|---|---|
| VPS (Hetzner CX22: 2 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD) | €4.50 |
| Backup storage (BuyVM 256 GB block) | $1.25 (~€1.15) |
| Domain name | €1.00 |
| Email hosting (Migadu, not self-hosted) | ~€1.50 |
| Infrastructure total | ~€8.15/month |
That’s the hardware. But self-hosting costs are not just hardware.
The Admin Time Budget
Every self-hosted server requires maintenance. Here’s what a typical month includes:
| Task | Time/month |
|---|---|
| OS and package updates | 20 min |
| Security monitoring (reading alerts, checking logs) | 30 min |
| Backup verification (test a restore) | 15 min |
| Performance review (is the disk full? RAM swapping?) | 15 min |
| Incident response (things break sometimes) | 30 min (averaged) |
| Total | ~1.8 hours/month |
At 1.8 hours/month for basic self-hosting maintenance, the cost depends on how you value your time:
- At €25/hour (junior freelancer rate): €45/month of time + €8.15 infrastructure = €53.15/month
- At €50/hour (mid-level engineer rate): €90/month of time + €8.15 infrastructure = €98.15/month
- At volunteer rate (€0/hour): €8.15/month
The Volunteer Trap
The “€8.15/month” calculation only works if you’re treating maintenance as a hobby. But hobby maintenance has real costs:
- Delayed security patches — the most common FOSS project vulnerability. When maintenance is unpaid, it gets deprioritised.
- Burnout — self-hosting maintenance competes with feature development, documentation, and community management for the same volunteer hours.
- Knowledge silos — when one person does all the ops, the project has a bus factor of one on infrastructure.
The Managed Hosting Budget
Managed FOSS hosting (OpsHelp pricing at £50/month):
| Item | Cost/month |
|---|---|
| Managed hosting (includes server, backups, monitoring) | £50 (~€58) |
| Domain name | €1.00 |
| Email hosting | €0 (included in managed plan) |
| Total | ~€59/month |
What you get beyond the server:
| Capability | Self-hosted (you do it) | Managed (included) |
|---|---|---|
| Security updates | Your responsibility | Automated and verified |
| Backup verification | You test restores | Tested weekly |
| Monitoring & alerting | You configure and watch | 24/7 with escalation |
| Incident response | You’re on call | Someone else is on call |
| Performance tuning | You figure it out | Proactive optimisation |
| Documentation | You write it | Included runbook |
| Exit strategy | You plan migration | Documented and supported |
The Real Comparison
| Self-hosting (€0/hr time) | Self-hosting (€50/hr time) | OpsHelp Managed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | €8.15 | €98.15 | €59.00 |
| Maintenance hours | 1.8 hrs (you) | 1.8 hrs (you) | 0 |
| On-call burden | You | You | OpsHelp team |
| Backup guarantees | Your diligence | Your diligence | Contractual |
| Time for actual FOSS work | -1.8 hrs/month | -1.8 hrs/month | +1.8 hrs/month |
When Self-Hosting Wins
Self-hosting remains the right choice when:
- You enjoy the ops work. If system administration is your hobby, the time cost is irrelevant — it’s entertainment with side benefits.
- Your project is tiny. A single static site with no database, no users, and no sensitive data genuinely requires near-zero maintenance.
- You need total control. If your stack is unusual, your security requirements are niche, or you’re running software that no managed provider supports.
- You’re learning. Self-hosting is a fantastic way to build Linux, networking, and security skills that transfer everywhere.
When Managed Hosting Wins
Managed hosting is the better financial decision when:
- Your time is worth more than ~€30/hour. At that rate, the 1.8 hours of monthly maintenance alone costs more than managed hosting.
- Your project has users. Downtime during incident response costs trust and adoption. Having someone on call who actually gets paid to respond is worth the premium.
- You have a team. When multiple people depend on infrastructure, the coordination cost of self-managed ops multiplies.
- You’re not an ops specialist. Paying a professional to do what they’re good at frees you to do what you’re good at.
- Compliance matters. If you handle donor data, user accounts, or anything legally sensitive, professional operations with documented processes are not optional.
The Hybrid Sweet Spot
The financially optimal approach for most mid-size FOSS projects is hybrid:
- Self-host what’s low-maintenance: Static sites, documentation, development environments, CI runners.
- Use managed services for what’s operationally heavy: Email, production databases, backup infrastructure.
- Get managed hosting when you need reliability guarantees: Donor-facing infrastructure, project websites, anything that hurts the project when it goes down.
This approach typically costs ~€20-70/month total — far less than going fully managed but with most of the reliability benefit.
What Managed FOSS Hosting Actually Looks Like
The best managed FOSS hosting doesn’t feel like outsourcing. It feels like having a co-maintainer who handles the ops so you can handle the code.
OpsHelp’s approach is specifically FOSS-aligned: infrastructure runs on the same providers this site recommends (Hetzner, Cloudflare), all tooling is open source (Docker, Caddy, Restic, Prometheus), every configuration is documented, and you can take over self-management at any time with a full export.
That last point matters. Good managed hosting is not lock-in — it’s a service you choose to renew because it genuinely makes your project better, not because leaving is expensive.
The Bottom Line
Self-hosting costs more than the server bill shows. At €4.50/month for a VPS, the sticker price is the smallest part of the real cost.
If you treat maintenance time as free and you enjoy doing it, self-hosting is irreplaceable.
If you treat your time honestly and want infrastructure that doesn’t compete with your project’s mission, managed hosting from a FOSS-aligned provider costs less than you think — and in many cases, less than the real cost of doing it yourself.
For FOSS projects with users, donors, or teams: €59/month for someone else to be on call is not an expense. It’s a bargain.