Hi everyone,
I’m a PhD student in Computer Science researching why people choose to self-host software—what motivates you, what concerns you, and what factors affect your decision-making.
To better understand this, I’ve prepared a short anonymous survey (~10 minutes). Your insights as part of the self-hosting community would be incredibly valuable for this research.
🔗 Survey link: https://survey.lpt.feri.um.si/376953?newtest=Y&lang=en&s=ls
This study is part of my doctoral research at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, conducted under the supervision of Assist. Prof. Lili Nemec Zlatolas, PhD. All responses are anonymous and used strictly for academic purposes.
If you’ve ever self-hosted anything—or even just considered it—I’d really appreciate your input.
Thanks a lot for your time, and feel free to ask me anything about the project ([email protected])!
Cheers!
Submitted.
I am in finance/accounting/consulting and I run one self hosted small server at home to manage my home machines remotely and use it with combo of proton to do most things.
While I am in the process of de-googleing I haven’t self hosted photo or email yet as proton has been working okay for the time being. One step at a time I guess for me… I am not in IT so it requires time for me to read up on things and set them up (rtfm indeed)…(yes we all know what proton CEO said… )…let’s see how it pans out.and this has been quite a journey for me. I am still having issues with family and friends not wanting to use jitsi (that I am using for calls or contact me on signal). I have basically thrown WhatsApp and anything I don’t care about within beeper under a work profile (android) I.e. in a sandbox / appimage (laptop).
Personally if next cloud allowed self hosting with self email hosting (whatever the technical terminology is) that would have been (chef’s kiss) muah…I would have jumped on it first hand…
Sorry I am not in IT so my jargon usage might be sub par.
Honestly, email is the one thing I wouldn’t self host, it’s just so much hastle getting it set up right and can be incredibly difficult to have emails you send not end up in spam. Just not worth the hastle imo.
Thanks, much appreciated!
Have you thought about contacting Louis Rossmann? He created an extensive video guide on how to self host using FOSS. Perhaps he’d be willing to highlight your survey to his over 2 million subscribers.
That’s a good idea, and maybe even Henry from Techlore.
@SelfhostedResearch Done. But I found the survey design redundant and repetitive. Could demotivate people to complete ;(
Thank you for your honest feedback and for completing the survey. We understand that some questions may have felt redundant or repetitive, but this design is intended to ensure the reliability and accuracy of measuring the same concepts from different perspectives.
Just filled it out in case you still need answers. Small note, your education answers don’t include “none”. While uncommon, some people never finished school and there is no option for that.
Thank you very much!
Page 2 seems to have a lot of redundant question.
I intend to continue using self-hosting services in the future if possible.
I will use self-hosting services regularly in the future if possible.
I will frequently use self-hosting services in the future if possibleQuestions in surveys like this are sometimes repeated with slight variations to get more accurate results.
They are different enough in intention though.
I intend - I plan to try, but I might not.
I will - I am definitely going to, but maybe not very often or for limited uses
I will frequently - I am definitely going to, and it will be a common/important part of my work/life-flow
Done.
I feel that it may be helpful to try to capture the motivation for each type of service.
For example. The reasons I host a media server are different than the reasons I host a photo backup solution.
Thank you for doing this research. I dream of the day that self hosting becomes as easy as spinning up a consumer router.
Done, though some of the questions were redundant or weirdly phrased.
This is actually a technique to capture an honest answer from a respondent. Ask the same question a few different ways here and there, then take the average of the answers. (It could have been executed better in this survey, though.)
You’re absolutely right, rephrasing similar questions is a common technique in survey design to reduce bias and improve reliability.
Some questions may feel a bit redundant or oddly phrased because we based the survey on validated constructs from prior academic research, especially well-established models like the Technology Acceptance Model. Using these standardized scales helps ensure the results are scientifically sound and comparable with previous studies - though I totally get that it can feel repetitive from a participant’s point of view.
That said, I really appreciate the feedback from both of you.
I have a feeling for that to be effective they should be spread-out and not appear one after another though.
I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible…
That question could really use a “not applicable” option. I don’t operate any home automation solutions, so any answer from me would be invalid, and neutral answers because the item is not relevant will appear the same as neutral answers because I use both self-hosted and externally hosted solutions (e.g. Mullvad for privacy and Tailscale to get around CGNAT).
Thanks for the comment: that’s a really good point to raise.
Just to clarify: the statement “I use self-hosted services in the following categories as much as possible” is meant to reflect how fully you make use of self-hosted solutions in each area. A response like “Strongly agree” would indicate that you actively use and take full advantage of self-hosting in that category.
If you don’t use solutions in a particular category at all — whether that’s because you don’t need them, aren’t interested, or use only external services — then it’s completely appropriate to select a disagreeing option (e.g. “Disagree” or “Strongly disagree”). In this context, lower agreement simply indicates low or no use, regardless of the reason.
From a methodological standpoint, the data will be analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). This approach requires a complete set of responses across the measured constructs. If we included a “not applicable” option, it would create missing values in the dataset and potentially lead to excluding the entire response for that part of the analysis — which would significantly reduce the usable sample size.
That said, I really appreciate your feedback! :)
I get why you’re taking that approach but you risk serious misclassification bias. The replies have stated people are using both “disagree” and “neither agree nor disagree” to indicate they are not hosting a particular kind of service. From your description of your research it sounds like disagree and strongly disagree should indicate that the individual uses company hosted services instead of self hosted services for those domains. The relationship between views on privacy and types of services self hosted is going to be confounded by that.
Yeh, I took “don’t agree or disagree” to be the N/A.
It seemed the most neutral.
I don’t really use anything for bookmark sharing/management. So I don’t strongly disagree or strongly agree with self hosting it.Be prepared for some respondents to choose the middle option as a proxy for “not applicable,” because that’s what I did.
I chose the middle option for things I’m not hosting, but could see myself hosting in the future.
If this was the expectation, then it should have been a checklist and/or had N/A available. I don’t think your data for this section will be accurate since myself/others replying did not use it this way.
I used “disagree” as “I am using a non-self hosted service for this,” the middle as “N/A” and the agree as “I am hosting a service for this”…
Using self-hosting services enables me to accomplish tasks more quickly.
As opposed to what? Using a cloud SaaS alternative, or not having that service at all?
My intuition says “whatever you would do if you didn’t selfhost”
People who influence my behavior think that I should use cloud services.
This question is going to get bad data. No one likes to think of themselves as being influenced. A more effective phrasing would be “…people I trust…”
Thanks for the comment — that’s a valid observation, and I understand how the wording might feel a bit awkward.
Just to clarify: the statement comes from a standardized construct called Subjective Norms, and follows the phrasing from the paper “A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model” by Venkatesh & Davis (2000).
For all independent variables in the survey, we relied on validated scales and established practices from prior scientific research, to ensure consistency and reliability. That said, I really appreciate your feedback. :)
Good luck on your thesis!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support! :)
Good luck on the thesis and I hope my data points can assist your research! I’m sure the community would love to see your finished thesis when it is done
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Well, they say they’re studying at a university in Slovenia, which gives it a pretty good chance that English isn’t their native language. Those questions still get across what they’re asking, so unless you’re some kind of grammatical god, I don’t think you can really complain too much
Done. Hope it helps.
Thanks, really appreciate it!
Done, and link forwarded to my non Lemmy using selfhosting mentor. Maybe can get at least one more respondant. Maybe more. Good luck!
