What it actually takes to self-host

Common questions

Why do these numbers differ from the official documentation?

Because documented minimums are the figure at which a process starts, not the figure at which it works. Nextcloud documents 512 MB and is unusable below about 4 GB with a real library. That gap is the entire point of these pages — it is the number that decides whether self-hosting is a good idea for you, and it is the one nobody publishes.

How are the monthly costs calculated?

Commodity VPS pricing at roughly $6 per GB of RAM, sized to the practical requirement rather than the documented one, plus storage where storage dominates. They exclude your time, which is the larger cost for most people — so every guide states the ongoing maintenance burden separately and honestly.

Do you only recommend self-hosting?

No, and every guide here carries a 'when not to self-host' section for that reason. For plenty of teams the managed product is the correct answer — a password manager that is down when you need a credential is worse than paying for one. A site that only ever tells you to self-host is selling something.