👋 Welcome to ElfHosted!
- We run popular self-hosted apps for you, securely and reliably.
- Attach your own storage or just use ours.
- Only pay for the apps you need, swap them out when you want to, billed from $0.05/day
See the apps 
Get started with FREE $10 credit
Quick Start Guides
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New user?
Here's how to get started, stat!
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Migrating from elsewhere?
Got data / settings to bring across? Here's a guide
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How does this work?
What makes us
differentspecial? -
Where my elfies
at?
Join our friendly Discord community for help and fun!
The back-story
I love self-hosting1, and have been publishing guides on building self-hosting platforms and running apps since 2016. Over time, I've updated my own platform from Docker Swarm to Kubernetes (several iterations).
Somewhere along the way, building automated / resilient / scalable systems in Kubernetes became my DayJob™, and I spent 2 years consulting/co-investing in a seedbox provider.
When this provider shut down, I took the opportunity to take my self-hosting to the next level. I leveraged what I'd built / learned over those past 2 years to build ElfHosted - a multi-tenant, resilient, automated and scalable app hosting platform, running on "budget" bare-metal cloud hardware. I wanted to be able to rapidly deploy new self-hosted apps in a templatized way, and I wanted to invite other geeks to join in / observe the process.
- David (@funkypenguin)
But.. but..
ElfHosted vs Selfhosting
Question:
"Why wouldn't I just run the app myself?"
Answer:
Totally valid. Here are some guides I wrote for doing just that on Docker Swarm or Kubernetes.
ElfHosted is for users (like me, post-kids!) who don't necessarily have the time / inclination to run (and maintain!) certain apps locally, want it to "Just Work™".
ElfHosted vs Seedbox
The following highly-detailed, meticulously researched2, and slightly-tongue-in-cheek table highlights the primary differences between ElfHosted and a seedbox. Provided those differences start with an "s":
| Feature | ElfHosted | Seedbox | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Security |  |  | Your apps are protected by single sign-on (SSO). BYO VPN for torrenting apps. |
 Simplicity | | | Preconfigured integrations between supported apps. Apps appropriately resourced for reasonable use. |
 Stability | |  | Kubernetes, HA, and GitOps ensures it all "Just Works" |
| Selection | |  | Apps are added / updated frequently. Pay for only what you use. |
 Storage | | | Bring your cloud storage, or buy from us! |
 Sexy | |  | Built by geeks. In public. Join us! |
Question:
"Why not just get a seedbox?"
Answer:
Yes, you could, and depending on what you want, it may be more customizable, cheaper, bigger, more performant, or more suitable for classic seeding / torrent racing / ratio-chasing.
That's not necessarily our jam though, consider this alternative 👇
How to build a classic seedbox on ElfHosted for 50c/day
You could buy the following apps:
For $0.45/day ($13.50/month), you have the basic Arrs, a download client, and a streaming client. For storage, you buy a 1TB Hetzner Storagebox ($4/month), and mount it to your apps ($0.05/day).
Now you have a basic seedbox, plus 1TB storage, for $0.50/day, and importantly, if ElfHosted fails, you own your storage, and you can migrate it / mount it to another provider 💪
