Self-hosted apps — what the users actually touch
The application layer: tools that staff open every day — passwords, documents, knowledge. In a stack this means: the data stays in-house.
Why this cluster
These tools replace classic SaaS products (1Password, Dropbox, Notion, DocuWare) with open-source counterparts on your own server. They are what staff open every day — the visible part of the stack. Wherever GDPR, professional confidentiality or social-data protection apply, these are the tools that make the cloud-SaaS reflex unnecessary.
Tools in this cluster
Vaultwarden
Self-hosted password manager (Bitwarden compatible)
Licence cost
Free
AGPL-3.0 licensed Rust reimplementation of the Bitwarden server: one container, ~50 MB RAM, fully compatible with every official Bitwarden app (iOS, Android, browser extension). Example: how a German architecture firm with 12 staff and 80 building projects manages 1,800+ logins without a SaaS vault.
Paperless-ngx
Self-hosted document archive with OCR and full-text search
Licence cost
Free
GPL-3.0 licensed DMS for trade businesses and SMBs: Tesseract local, full-text search, ML auto-tagging, REST , GoBD-compliant retention. Example: how a German HVAC business archived 7,400+ delivery notes, maintenance contracts and subsidy applications in 18 months — search in under a second.
BookStack
Self-hosted wiki with books-chapters-pages structure
Licence cost
Free
MIT licensed wiki with WYSIWYG + Markdown, full-text search, REST , multi-user. Example from our own practice: we have used BookStack for 18 months for 400+ pages of internal knowledge — this entire tools section was developed from BookStack storyboards.
Cal.com
Self-hosted scheduling tool (Calendly alternative)
Licence cost
Free
MIT licensed scheduling tool: self-service slots, availability management, recurring appointments, reminder emails. Example: how a German psychotherapy group practice with 4 therapists and 240 patients runs its scheduling Art. 9 GDPR compliant — saving €5,000–9,000 per year compared to Doctolib.
WordPress
The CMS behind 43 % of all websites — radically rethought with AI
Licence cost
Free
Vanilla WordPress + Block Editor + (ChatGPT, Claude, , ) replaces the expensive plugin stack. Example: how a neighbourhood restaurant maintains its site daily — from €700/year plugin stack down to €190/year, daily updates in 15 minutes via smartphone.
TinaCMS
Git-based headless CMS for Next.js and Astro
Licence cost
Free
Apache-2.0 licensed headless CMS with content as Markdown/MDX in a Git repository and a visual editor in the browser. Schema definition in TypeScript, automatic type generation. Fits Next.js, Astro or Hugo sites with editorial maintenance.
Other clusters
Self-hosted apps need infrastructure and workflows
The applications run on a container platform with a , and many of them hook into workflows:
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