Dropbox / Google Drive → Nextcloud
Same sync, same sharing, plus calendars, contacts, and document editing. Free.
Average saving: R150/month per person on consumer plans, R450/month on business plans.
Your server · Your data · Your rules
Run your own cloud. Cancel four subscriptions.
A private cloud is a small computer in your home or office that does everything Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack, and Zoom do — except the data stays on hardware you own, and nobody reads it but you.
The swap
FILES
CHAT
CALLS
OFFICE
Replace four paid services with one box.
A typical private cloud setup replaces these — most of which you are already paying for monthly — with software you install once and update for free.
Slack / Teams → Rocket.Chat or Mattermost
Channels, DMs, file sharing, integrations to anything that has a webhook. No per-user fees.
Average saving: R800/month for a 10-person team on Slack Pro.
Zoom → Jitsi Meet
Video conferencing in the browser. No app install needed on the other side. No 40-minute limit.
Free for personal use, no Pro tier required for teams under ten.
Microsoft 365 → Nextcloud + Collabora
Word, Excel, PowerPoint in the browser, real-time co-editing, your files stay local.
Average saving: R1,200/year per Family plan, R3,500/year per Business plan.
The stack
What actually runs on the box.
Every piece of software below is open source, actively maintained, and used in production by organisations much bigger than yours.
| Software | Replaces | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Nextcloud | Dropbox, Google Drive, Office 365 | File sync, share, calendars, contacts, document editing. The centre of a typical setup. |
| Collabora Online | Microsoft Word / Excel / PowerPoint | Real-time co-editing inside Nextcloud. Reads and writes Microsoft formats. |
| Rocket.Chat | Slack, Microsoft Teams | Team chat with channels, threads, voice, and integrations to anything that has a webhook. |
| Jitsi Meet | Zoom | Video conferencing in the browser. No app install needed on the other side. |
| Bitwarden (self-hosted) | 1Password, LastPass | Password manager for the whole team. Runs from your server, encrypted at rest. |
| Paperless-ngx | Scanning cabinets, shared drives | Document management with OCR. Photograph a receipt, it indexes automatically. |
| Home Assistant | Smart home hubs | If you want home automation — lights, sensors, alarms — to ride along on the same box. |
| Nginx Proxy Manager | Configuring HTTPS by hand | One-click HTTPS, letsencrypt, virtual hosts. Removes the gnarliest part of self-hosting. |
| Cockpit | Edit config files | Web UI for system administration. Tasks that used to need the command line become a dashboard. |
| WireGuard | NordVPN, corporate VPN clients | Fast modern VPN, configured in five minutes. For when you are not at home. |
“The hardest part of self-hosting used to be HTTPS. The hardest part used to be email. Both are now one-click.” A reader, six months in
What fits
HOME
SMALL BUSINESS
OFFICE / NGO
Three setups, three budgets.
A private cloud is not one-size-fits-all. Here are the three configurations that cover most home and small-business needs — including a runnable shopping list and weekend timeline.
The Raspberry Pi setup
Raspberry Pi 5 + 1 TB SSD
The mini PC
Intel NUC / used office mini PC, 16 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD
The proper server
Tower server with ECC RAM, mirrored NVMe, UPS
Hosting locations
MOST COMMON
MOST RESILIENT
MOST FLEXIBLE
Where the box should live.
Three viable options, ranked by how often South Africans pick each. Same software on each, very different risk profile.
In a cupboard at home
Cheapest, fastest on your home network, no upload bandwidth needed for inside-LAN use. Slow if your upload link goes down. Vulnerable to load shedding without a UPS.
In a colocation rack
Generator-backed power, gigabit links, paid for by the rack unit. Costs R600-R1,500/month. Worth it for a small business where downtime costs more than the rack.
Hybrid (box at home + cloud backup)
Server in the cupboard for daily work, encrypted snapshots to a cloud bucket overnight. Best of both worlds if load shedding is the main concern.
What you keep
What you don’t lose by going private.
Access from anywhere
Reach your files and chat from your phone, laptop, or any browser. The server is on the internet — you don’t have to be on the office Wi-Fi.
Real-time collaboration
Multiple people editing the same document, with comments and version history. Same as Google Docs, just on hardware you own.
Backups you control
Your data lives in three places: the server, an external drive, and an offsite encrypted copy. You decide when and how backups happen.
Compliance without lawyers
POPIA, GDPR, HIPAA — most data-residency regulations get easier when the data literally never leaves your building.
What you trade off
Honest trade-offs.
Self-hosting is not zero effort. These are the costs that catch the most people out.
You now own the pager.
If the box stops working at 2am, that is your problem, not Microsoft’s. Most outages come from three things: full disks, expired TLS certificates, and DNS hiccups. Each takes ten minutes to fix once you have done it twice.
You should plan for one weekend morning per month doing system updates and reviewing logs.
Some things are still easier outsourced.
Email at any real volume is the canonical example. Running a mail server is doable, but anti-spam, DMARC, DKIM, and warming up new IP ranges is an entire second job.
For most teams, the right hybrid is: run files, chat, and calls yourself; keep email on a managed provider (Fastmail, ProtonMail, or your existing provider).
“The first outage will teach you more about your infrastructure than a year of SaaS. The second outage will be twenty minutes. By the third, you’ve built a real on-call habit.” The Linux Institute team
Want help setting one up?
From "where do I start" to a working cloud.
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