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Self-hosting: what is and is not included

Self-hosting: what is and is not included — ɳSelf documentation.

You run nSelf yourself, on your own server. This page draws the line between what nSelf gives you, what stays yours to run, what a bundle unlocks, and what still talks to nself.org while you self-host. Every number and status below links to the page that generates it — nothing here is typed by hand and left to go stale.

Included

  • The nSelf CLI — MIT, free forever, no key required. Runs your project on your own infrastructure.
  • The four core services (Postgres, Hasura GraphQL, Auth, and the nginx proxy/SSL layer) and every optional service the CLI can add.
  • Every plugin in the free registry — see the Plugin Catalog for the current list.
  • ɳSelf Admin as a local GUI companion for the CLI (like Docker Desktop or Portainer) — it runs on your own machine and manages your own installation. It is not a hosted product, and multi-tenant or cloud-management features are deliberately not part of it.
  • All core security and hardening (RLS, rate limiting, MFA throttle, SSRF guard, JWT rotation, WAF basics, audit logs, TLS) — free and on by default, always. Nothing security-related is ever paywalled.

Operator-owned

Self-hosting means these are yours to run, not nSelf’s:

  • The server itself — provisioning, OS patching, and capacity.
  • Backups and restore drills. nself backup runs the backup; testing that a restore actually works is on you.
  • Monitoring and on-call for your own installation.
  • TLS certificate renewal (the CLI automates the renewal command; you keep it scheduled and watched).
  • Database capacity planning as your data grows.

Needs a bundle

The CLI and free plugins cover the core platform. Product-specific plugins (AI assistant, chat, family, observability, and so on) ship through paid bundles. See the bundle pages for the current list, membership, and pricing — not repeated here so it cannot drift out of sync with what is actually for sale.

Talks to nself.org

Self-hosting is not the same as fully disconnected. A few things reach nself.org by design:

  • License validation for bundle plugins, at install and restart. See Licensing for exactly what is (and is not) sent, and the offline/air-gapped path if your host has no network access.
  • Update checks for the CLI itself.
  • Telemetry is off by default. Nothing about your installation is sent anywhere unless you opt in.

Deployment paths

VPS and Docker Compose deployment is documented end to end in the Production Deployment guide. Kubernetes and any-cloud provisioning are covered by free plugins whose current status is tracked on their own pages, not restated here:

Exit path

Nothing about self-hosting locks you in. Your data lives in PostgreSQL — nself backup gives you a plain dump. Your schema and permissions live in Hasura metadata, exportable with the Hasura CLI. Your migrations are plain SQL files in your own project. If you ever stop using nSelf, all of it leaves with you.