2026 is the Year of Self-hosting
by Jordan Fulghum, January 2026
Your home server's new sysadmin: Claude Code
I have flirted with self-hosting at home for years. I always bounced off it - too much time spent configuring instead of using. It just wasn't fun.
That changed recently. The reason is simple: CLI agents like Claude Code make self-hosting on a cheapo home server dramatically easier and actually fun.
This is the first time I would recommend it to normie/software-literate people who never really wanted to sign up to become a sysadmin and stress about uptime of core personal services.
Why now is different
Three things converged:
Shift Why it matters Cheap, capable mini PCs You can buy a silent, low-power Linux box for less than a weekend trip Tailscale Secure networking without port forwarding or networking brain damage Claude Code You no longer need to remember Docker syntax, Compose quirks, or config formats
The last one is the real unlock.
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