Ethan Sholly, the driving force behind selfh.st, one of the most recognized communities uniting self-hosting enthusiasts, has published the latest results of his annual survey on the community’s preferences, collecting 4,081 responses from self-hosting practitioners worldwide.
No surprise there: Linux is overwhelmingly dominant, chosen by more than four out of five self-hosters (81%). In other words, for self-hosters operating at bare-metal, virtualised, or container-based infrastructure, Linux remains the backbone.
In fact, this result aligns closely with broader trends: according to Wikipedia, Linux holds a 63% share of global server infrastructure. Aside from the hobby aspect, most respondents said privacy was their main reason for self-hosting, which, as you know, remains one of Linux’s strongest selling points. Now, back to the numbers.
Linux is more than that if you dig down. Nobody is running Windows on their network infrastructure, datacenters, media devices, blahblahblah.
Linux is in almost everything you interact with on a daily basis aside from certain desktops.