Beelink SER9 Max mini PC that is great for Proxmox

In this video, I share the real-world services I stopped self-hosting in my home lab and we look at why cloud or managed solutions ultimately made more sense for me for certain services in particular. For years, my default answer was to self-host everything, and while that mindset taught me a ton about networking, DNS, storage, security, and virtualization, I eventually realized that not every service is worth the operational overhead. I walk through why I moved away from self-hosted email, public DNS, remote access gateways, push notifications, and password managers, and how stress, time, and reliability became the deciding factors. Read the written blog on this topic here: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/2025/12/things-i-stopped-self-hosting-and-why-cloud-or-managed-won/ Check out this mini 10 inch rack for your mini PCs: https://geni.us/pRBmZ Beelink SER9 Max mini PC that is great for Proxmox: https://geni.us/rB5v3 Check out the VHT forums to get your questions answered: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com/community/ ★ Skool Community https://www.skool.com/homelabexplorers/about?ref=25f64c297b724689ae81c7dd30ba2c21 ★ Substack URL: bleevht.substack.com ★ Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrxcWtpd1IGHG9RbD_9380A?sub_confirmation=1 ★ My blog: https://www.virtualizationhowto.com ★ Twitter: https://twitter.com/vspinmaster ★ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-lee-vht/ ★ Github: https://github.com/brandonleegit ★ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/VirtualizationHowto/100092747277326/ ★ Discord: https://discord.gg/Zb46NV6mB3 ★ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/brandonleevht/ Chapters 00:00 Why I Questioned Self-Hosting Everything 01:20 When Self-Hosting Stops Adding Value 03:05 Why I Stopped Self-Hosting Email 07:10 The Reality of Running Public DNS 10:45 Internal DNS vs Public DNS in the Home Lab 13:40 Remote Access Gateways and Security Risks 17:30 Zero Trust Access for Modern Home Labs 20:55 Why I Gave Up Self-Hosted Push Notifications 24:10 The Risk of Self-Hosted Password Managers 28:20 Stress and Time as the Real Metrics 31:30 What I Still Love Self-Hosting 34:15 Final Thoughts on Smarter Self-Hosting Choices