Survey on factors influencing the decision to Self-host software
survey.lpt.feri.um.si

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 (luka.hrgarek@um.si)!

Cheers!

  • SelfhostedResearch@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    29·
    6 days ago

    That’s a very valid concern, and you’re absolutely right to bring it up.

    One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users, which means that in order to get enough self-hosters from the general population for meaningful analysis, we’d need a very large sample.

    Unfortunately, we don’t have the funding or resources to conduct such large-scale research through a representative panel or agency. That’s why this study is focusing on communities where self-hosting is already discussed, like this one.

    That said, we’re definitely aware of this limitation, and we’re also sharing the survey in broader, more general-interest online communities where we expect non-self-hosters (or people unfamiliar with the concept) to be more present. This will allow us to include comparisons between the two groups in the analysis.

    Really appreciate your thoughtful comment — thanks!

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      20·
      6 days ago

      One existing study that surveyed the general population found that about 8.4% of respondents were self-hosting users

      Wow! That’s a lot higher than I would’ve expected. My guess would’ve been about 1%, or maybe even an order of magnitude or so less than that.

        • kernelle@0d.gsEnglish
          5·
          6 days ago

          Thanks for the source, super interesting read! I would’ve guessed 1-5% as well.

        • Mniot@programming.devEnglish
          3·
          6 days ago

          Thanks for linking that. Reading the paper, it looks like the majority of the “self-host” population they’re capturing is people who have a WordPress site. By my reading, the wording of the paper would disqualify a wordpress.com-hosted site as “self-hosted”. But I’d be very suspicious of their methodology and would expect that quite a few people who use WP-hosted reported as self-hosted because the language is pretty confusing.

      • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        7·
        6 days ago

        My guess is that it also included things like the 12 year old hosting a Minecraft server for their friends. Which, to be clear, is a totally valid self-hosting use case.

      • nfh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        6 days ago

        I suspect there’s a tendency of experts in something to think of people who do it narrowly as people doing at least as much as they are.

        The people who have a bunch of docker services, or complex multi-machine infrastructure are self-hosted software users, and probably in that 1-2% range. People who heard piholes are useful, so they bought a pi 3 and set it up are self-hosted software users. Somebody using an old desktop they got on Facebook marketplace for running Plex media are self-hosted software users… and so on. So are the people in their houses, some of their friends and family.

        Using that inclusive definition, being closer to 10% than 1% makes sense to me.