There are many solutions. I have chosen xmpp/ejabberd/conversations/monal.

I just like it and I value my privacy. I don’t try to convince anyone. I explain it is both a hobby and a kind of political statement.

Look at https://github.com/coturn/coturn

I have self-hosted Matrix for a couple of years. I eventually settled with xmpp/ejabberd/conversations. It is easier to maintain and less resource intensive, especially if you want to go the federation route.

I genuinely don’t understand what you are paying for. I must have missed something.

What cost?

It is hard to set up and you might need an SMTP relay since most ISPs close port 25. But it is feasible.

I have everything at home, including the mail server. The only third party to my setup is a SMTP relay. All on an Odroid H4+. With a backup server on a Raspberry Pi 4 at my daughter’s.

What I do is a local backup on a different disk with BorgBackup, then a copy of that local backup to a Pi at a friend’s place, with rsync.

Don’t you want to turn off the whole NAS? Of you don’t have the disks spinning, the NAS is probably useless.

I run Immich which makes me really happy. Maybe you should give it another try…

Upgraded to Debian Trixie two days ago. Runs flawlessly

I use Watchtower just to notify me of the updates. So the docker socket is read-only.