The original post: /r/selfhosted by /u/Routine_Librarian330 on 2024-11-10 19:06:15.

I’ve recently tried out a music server to stream my collection on the LAN (and potentially anywhere through a VPN tunnel into said LAN). Still, I really don’t see the point: what genuine upsides? The alternatives just seem better:

• carrying my most frequently played titles with the on my phone. Sure, that’ll cost me some storage space, but modern devices have plenty of that, and as an added bonus, I’m not producing any traffic in doing so - no added power usage on my server, no traffic counting towards my data rate at my mobile provider. And I’m leaving zero data trail to be gobbled up and (ab)used by any large platforms - it’s the perfect solution privacy-wise.
• streaming everything via commercial providers (e.g. Spotify or YouTube). Yes, that will use some of my bandwidth, but so does streaming stuff off the homeserver. On the upside, these platforms have got way more titles than both of my other options - dumping music onto my phone or streaming self-hosted music. Obviously, there are some privacy costs (both platforms track and profile you).

Have I overlooked anything? Are these all the arguments there are? Or did I miss a killer feature in self-hosted music?