Self hosting business management software on a Raspberry Pi - hear me out

techguy

So,

I am starting out as a startup working on some projects that will be commercialised and also going to work as an contractor (Software Engineering) also.

During the course of business I am going to need various tools such as CRM, financial accounting, project management, invoicing etc.

Instead of subscribing to various tools etc from various providers, which could be costly, I am planning on hosting my own FOSS solutions locally at home on a Raspberry Pi.

This might sound crazy but.. there will be sufficient compute resource as I will be the only user. For any databases that are required I can use Amazon RDS to securely store the data, any files can be stored on S3, mapped to a volume on Linux.

I will not self host email as that is complicated - that will be done by Zoho I think.

Is this a crap idea do you think? I'm concerned that I might dump a load of time updating and managing the software. I am also aware that open source software is usually not of the same calibre as its commercial, paid equivalent. Has anybody done something similar.

There is a list of self hosted solutions here.

ED E

If your business cant afford ~7€/mo for a VPS it probably isnt much of a business.

techguy

ED E wrote: »

If your business cant afford ~7€/mo for a VPS it probably isnt much of a business.

I think you missed the point in order to make a snide remark..

It's not about a R Pi versus VPS.. more about self-hosting a bunch of FOSS packages instead of going out to individual SAAS providers, which would cost more than ~€7/mo.

The question is still the same if I put them all on a VPS.....

feylya

Possible? Yes. Worth it? Probably not. Raspberry Pi's can be flakey, depending on sd cards, power supplies etc. If you're relying on this for your business, don't do it.

emilrasyad

You start small, so investing too much on IT (VPS, AWS, power hungry server, etc) wouldn't be a good idea. Running applications and distributing them on several raspberry PIs would be a good idea, memory is the main constraints. But proper backup to NAS for critical files (apps configuration and database file) can save your headache in case system failed on raspberry. And you can move some of the critical application afterwards to cloud or proper server as your business grow.

I run my company mail server (with anti virus and anti spam, dkim, spf and dmarc features) for <10 users, DNS and print server on my raspberry pi for couple of months now, no complains.

techguy

emilrasyad wrote: »

You start small, so investing too much on IT (VPS, AWS, power hungry server, etc) wouldn't be a good idea. Running applications and distributing them on several raspberry PIs would be a good idea, memory is the main constraints. But proper backup to NAS for critical files (apps configuration and database file) can save your headache in case system failed on raspberry. And you can move some of the critical application afterwards to cloud or proper server as your business grow.

I run my company mail server (with anti virus and anti spam, dkim, spf and dmarc features) for <10 users, DNS and print server on my raspberry pi for couple of months now, no complains.

Thanks sounds good - That sounds like you are getting good value from your Pi. What mail server are you using? I find it is difficult to get access to cheap services for own domains.

emilrasyad

techguy wrote: »

Thanks sounds good - That sounds like you are getting good value from your Pi. What mail server are you using? I find it is difficult to get access to cheap services for own domains.

I'm using postfix for smtp, and my wife already purchase domain from go****y for a while, I simply add mail server and other stuff using go****y dns. you can get good deal for domain name (.com or .eu) during holiday sale.
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