Field notes from a real lab
ORIVANA
Practical self-hosting guides — clear trade-offs, deploy paths, and what it takes to keep services healthy.
Editor's note
Original guides and lab notes for self-hosting — what fits, how to ship it, and what it costs to keep running.
Pick BookStack vs Wiki.js vs Outline for the job, structure pages people will actually use, and back up content before the wiki becomes the only copy.
When to self-host FreshRSS or Miniflux, how to keep OPML portable, and fetch habits that respect publishers without turning RSS into another inbox.
Operator guide to running Ollama at home — install paths, Docker, model disk gravity, GPU vs CPU, API exposure, and a sane first weekend with Open WebUI.
One ops guide for reverse proxy + ACME: what a proxy solves, Caddy/Traefik/Nginx fit, certificate renewal, Docker wiring, failure modes, and troubleshooting — without three overlapping primers.
Hash, JSON, timestamps, images, and AI helpers — run them in the browser, then get back to the rack.
Unix seconds and milliseconds ↔ local/UTC dates, with a live clock.
Open toolPretty-print, minify, or validate JSON in the browser.
Open toolCompute MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 digests locally.
Open toolGenerate strong passwords locally — length, charset, and count.
Open toolLook up IP geolocation, ASN, and network details.
Open toolRewrite text by style and length — polish drafts in one pass.
Open toolCompress images in the browser before you upload or archive them.
Open toolConvert between text and Base64 — Standard, URL-safe, and MIME.
Open toolOperator guidance for privacy-first analytics — metrics that matter, consent, and maintenance load.
How to evaluate CMS options for blogs and brochure sites — migration, plugins, and day-2 ops.
Moderation load, federation choices, and security expectations for community software.
Threat modeling and backup practices before you import bank CSVs into a home server.
Pick trackers that match your ceremony budget — issues, boards, or full suites.
How to adopt self-hosted automation without creating undebugable brittle pipelines.
Start with a shortlist, not a firehose.
Compose-friendly picks for reverse proxy, vault, photos, and a homepage — a practical first rack.
DNS filtering, sync, notes, and analytics with fewer third parties in the path.
Photos, movies, audiobooks, and a living-room friendly streaming core.
Git hosting, project boards, and low-code building blocks for a private engineering space.
Wikis, OCR document vaults, and PDF utilities for households and tiny offices.
Blogging, CMS, newsletters-adjacent publishing, and first-party analytics.
Deployments and failure notes come from a Proxmox / Docker review bench — not a scraped list.
Every guide is written from operator work: install paths, upgrades, and the parts that actually break.
We score tools on stability, backups, and security over time — not launch-week screenshots.
How we review is public. Rankings are not for sale. Lab notes can be checked against the benches.
Orivana is Ben Liu's self-hosting column: original deep tutorials and lab notes for operators. Start with Guides, Topics, and curated stacks — written from a Proxmox/Compose review lab, not scraped blog dumps.
Ben Liu publishes Orivana as an independent site and runs a small Proxmox/Docker review lab for lab notes. Corrections and privacy requests go to support@orivana.xyz, typically within 2-3 business days.
The software is often free as in freedom / free as in price, but hosting is not free. You pay with hardware, electricity, domains, backup storage, and your time for updates and incidents.
No, but Docker Compose is a practical default for many beginners because it packages dependencies and makes rebuilds repeatable. Some projects install natively via packages or binaries.
Follow Getting started: pick one job-to-be-done, shortlist a few tools, deploy behind a reverse proxy, prove a restore, then harden lightly.
Guides are original operator articles (how-tos, comparisons, roundups). Topics are category playbooks that help you choose among tools in one area. Stacks (collections) are curated shortlists for a job-to-be-done, such as a first Docker rack or secure remote access.