# De-Googling your life: self-hosted alternatives to Big Tech The most common reason people build a home lab is not to save money — it is to own their own data. Here is a practical blueprint for moving files, photos, and passwords off big-tech clouds and onto hardware you control, with the maintenance realities told straight. "De-Googling" sounds ideological until the first time a cloud account gets locked with no human to appeal to, or a free tier quietly starts training on your files. Self-hosting is the practical answer: run the same *kinds* of services yourself, on your own hardware, where the data never leaves your control. It is not free of effort — that is the honest part of this article — but for files, photos, and passwords, the open-source alternatives are genuinely good now. ## 01 Why data sovereignty is the real motivation The pitch for self-hosting is not that Google's engineering is bad — it is excellent — but that convenience is rented, and the terms can change. Data sovereignty means your data lives on hardware you own, under rules you set, with no third party able to mine it, lock it, or discontinue it. That is the motivation underneath almost every home lab, and the three services below are where most people start, because they map directly onto the big-tech products people most want to leave. ## 02 Files and documents: Nextcloud and Collabora **Nextcloud** is the mature, open-source replacement for Google Drive: file sync across all your devices, sharing links, calendars, contacts, and a large app ecosystem, all self-hosted.[1](#ref-1) Bolt on **Collabora Online** and you get a real office suite — documents, spreadsheets, and presentations edited collaboratively in the browser, the self-hosted analogue of Google Docs, integrated directly into Nextcloud.[2](#ref-2) Together they cover the single biggest chunk of most people's Google dependency, and they run comfortably on the kind of mini PC part four of this series recommends. ## 03 Photos: Immich or PhotoPrism Google Photos is the hardest habit to break, because the experience is so good — which is exactly why two open-source projects now match it closely. **Immich** is a self-hosted photo and video backup built to feel like Google Photos: automatic phone backup, timeline, search, and face and object recognition, developed at a rapid pace.[3](#ref-3) **PhotoPrism** takes a slightly different angle — an AI-powered photo library you can run anywhere, strong on tagging and browsing large collections.[4](#ref-4) Choose Immich if you want the closest Google-Photos-style phone-backup experience; choose PhotoPrism if you want a library-first organiser. Both keep your photos on your disks, not someone else's. ## 04 Passwords: Vaultwarden instead of a cloud vault Passwords are the most sensitive data most people hand to the cloud, and here self-hosting is especially compelling. **Vaultwarden** is a lightweight, open-source server that is compatible with the official Bitwarden clients — the same apps and browser extensions — but runs entirely on your own hardware, so your vault never sits on a vendor's servers.[5](#ref-5)[6](#ref-6) You keep the polished Bitwarden client experience and the open, audited protocol, while the encrypted vault itself lives in your home lab. For anyone whose reason to de-Google is privacy, this is the highest-leverage single service to move. > Self-hosting is not about distrusting every company. It is about not needing to trust any of them with the data that matters most — because it never leaves your house. ## 05 The honest maintenance reality Owning your data means owning its upkeep, and pretending otherwise does no one a favour. You are now responsible for updates, security patches, and — above all — backups: a self-hosted service with no 3-2-1 backup (see part one) is one failed disk away from the data loss you were trying to prevent.[7](#ref-7) Budget a couple of hours a month for maintenance, keep services in Docker so updates are clean, and automate what you can (part five). The trade is real: you swap a monthly fee and total convenience for control, privacy, and a genuinely valuable skill set. For a lot of people that trade is clearly worth it — but go in knowing you are the sysadmin now. ## 06 Where OcxlyDev lands We self-host the things where sovereignty matters most — files, photos, passwords — and we are relaxed about using commercial services where it does not. Start with one: put your password vault on Vaultwarden, live with it for a month, then add Nextcloud, then photos. De-Googling is not an all-or-nothing purge; it is a gradual reclaiming of the data you most want to own, one well-run service at a time — each of which, not coincidentally, teaches you the exact skills the rest of this series builds on. **About this piece.** This is part three of a five-part OcxlyDev field guide on building a modern home lab — the 10-layer stack, zero-trust networking, de-Googling with self-hosted apps, mini-PC hardware, and Infrastructure as Code with Ansible. Every load-bearing claim links to a primary or reputable source below; project names and hardware move quickly, so check the live page before quoting specifics. ## References 1. [Nextcloud — official site: self-hosted file sync, sharing, and collaboration (a Google Drive alternative)](https://nextcloud.com/) 2. [Collabora Online — official site: a self-hosted, browser-based office suite that integrates with Nextcloud](https://www.collaboraonline.com/collabora-online/) 3. [Immich — official site: a high-performance, self-hosted photo and video backup solution](https://immich.app/) 4. [PhotoPrism — official site: an AI-powered, self-hosted photos app for browsing and organising](https://www.photoprism.app/) 5. [Vaultwarden — project repository: a lightweight Bitwarden-compatible server implemented in Rust](https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden) 6. [Bitwarden — on third-party compatible servers: the official clients work against a self-hosted server](https://bitwarden.com/help/third-party-compatible-server/) 7. [CISA / US-CERT — "Data Backup Options": the 3-2-1 rule you now own for your self-hosted data](https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/data_backup_options.pdf)