Now that my first apps are reliable and accessible, what next?

More apps!

File server#

Nextcloud has a bunch of integrated offerings, but I mainly care about the central one: a solid file server for my personal cloud. This broadly takes over from my OneDrive and Google Drive, and is a single port of call for any documents and data I want to back up that don’t fall into other applications.

Knowledgebase & Notes#

There are a lot of options out there for notetaking and personal knowledgebases. I landed on Trilium Notes for its hierarchical structure, quick navigation with commands, easy to use WYSIWYG editor, wide range of note types, and template support. It is one user per instance, so you’ll have to spin up more if anyone wants a separate one.

Audiobook Server#

Liberating my music got me thinking about other audio streams I’m reliant on a large corporation for. For quite a while I had an Audible plan I’d pause for 3 months, get billed for a month on, then pause for another 3 months. I’ve never been a serial audiobook listener, but I have 30-odd titles on the platform¹.

It’d be great to have full control of the audiobooks I purchased, and luckily Libation does just that, downloading and decrypting my audible library.

The definitive audiobook streaming app seems to be Audiobookshelf, and for good reason. It’s a solid streamer with online metadata matching, and quite a strong beta mobile app (at least on Android).

Another nice feature is that it doesn’t have its own system for storing media, so any directory of Audiobooks you point it to should work with it.

eBook Server#

I was also in the Kindle ecosystem for a few years, so it would be great to move over my books from there into something I own and control.

Booklore is an e-book server with all the bells and whistles you can really ask for. My killer features are OPDS (open publication distribution system) support², and an easy way to mass-input new books that they call a ‘bookdrop’ folder. KOReader progress sync, online metadata matching, organisation into distinct libraries and shelves, and a competent (and customisable) built-in reader are all excellent for user experience too. It’s an insanely feature-rich application in this niche.

Further apps#

This setup ticks most of my boxes, but there’s always more to be done. These are the applications I’m looking at next:

• Collabora for online editing and collaboration of documents on Nextcloud.
• Dashy for a centralised dashboard for all my self-hosted apps. I’m not 100% certain I need this, but it’ll be interesting to try out.
• A Radarr/Sonarr stack including Jackett, qBittorrent (and a VPN, likely AirVPN), with Radarr importing Letterboxd lists.
• Learning Wireguard to work toward replacing Tailscale

You’ve made it to the end, thanks for reading this all! Please hit me up if you’d like to discuss anything self-hosting =)