[dominikz]

I was hosting on a PC at home like 10 years ago. The problem was that when I wanted to go to sleep, it was just too noisy. Even if the box was running in a different room. It was also an issue that my ISP was changing the IP from time to time, so I had to update my DNS. And it does not happen in an instance.

15 years ago we also were trying some other approach with friends. It was the time when cloud was not still the buzzword, and buying a dedicated server in a datacenter was just too expensive for us students (back then). So we bought back then a bare-metal Hetzner machine with friends and shared the bill (for a few years). The problem was, as always, when some time elapsed and some folks wanted out, you needed to re-split the bill. As you can imagine it all collapsed.

Today, what I do to solve both problems? I just buy cheap Hetzner Cloud virtual machines. The cost is marginal. Even with their latest price bump. And it solves the other problem I've had with old approaches. When you pack everything on one box, you have a problem after 2-3 years that it's hard to upgrade the OS ... without taking everyting down ... and possibly not be able to take it back up - the OS upgrade is scarry. The small cheap virtual servers allow you to take the OS upgrade risk-free.

Have you considered how much electricity will that computer @home eat? My hosting at home made me learn it the hard way (it was a regular linux based PC eating a lot of current). I think you have to factor in the hardware + electricity cost in order to estimate what's cheaper.

[yesiamsumit]

Mac mini won't consume too much electricity, its processor is ARM based. It'll probably cost few cents a day to run.

with hetzner, the closest comparable option (16gb ram, 8 core ampere cpu) with a base model mac mini will annually cost almost 50% of the mac mini price. so cost wise, mac mini is equal to 2 years of hetzner vm. (comparing prices as of today for both, earlier mac mini used to be quite cheap).

I already have residential internet. The only downside is having to ensure uninterrupted power and internet. and also the friction of connecting remotely via ssh.

[rekabis]

The solution to your noise and electricity costs are the ARM-based Macs.

Not only are they whisper-quiet, they also sip the electricity. I just had an unplanned power outage two days ago, and my Dell Precision 7920 (44c/88t, 256Gb RAM) had about 20 minutes of UPS power vs the 148 minutes of my much more powerful Mac Studio M4 Max (16c, 128Gb RAM). Both were idling at the time.

Even the first-gen ARM Mac Mini’s are something like ⅓ the power draw of the 2018 versions (the last of the Intel CPUs), and under load it can be as little as ¼ the power draw.