r/selfhosted
An active and knowledgeable community built around running software yourself instead of buying it as a service — which makes it a difficult place to sell software as a service.
What the numbers say
r/selfhosted sees a busy stream of posts — about 37 a day — with real discussion on most posts. Genuine engagement from a committed community. The obstacle here is not attention, it is the premise.
| Measure | r/selfhosted |
|---|---|
| Members | 814k |
| Created | 2014 |
| Posts per day | 37 |
| Median comments | 14 |
| Text posts | 83% |
| Accepts | Links and text |
| Rules total | 6 |
| Rules on promotion | 1 |
What these numbers mean and why subscriber count is the wrong one is explained on the directory hub.
The audience is defined by not buying what you sell
This is worth including precisely as a caution. The subreddit looks appealing to a B2B software founder: technical, engaged, discussing exactly the problem categories your product addresses. But the organising principle of the community is avoiding hosted commercial software, either on cost, privacy or control grounds.
Selling a SaaS product here is close to selling meat at a vegetarian conference. There are exceptions — open-core products, self-hostable tools, one-time licences and genuinely privacy-focused offerings can land well, and this community will champion them enthusiastically. But if your product is cloud-only and subscription-priced, the fit is poor no matter how good it is.
Worth monitoring for a different reason: complaints here about hosted incumbents are unusually detailed and often surface real product weaknesses before they show up anywhere else.
Promotion rules, in the moderators' own words
1 of r/selfhosted's 6 rules govern promotion, advertising or soliciting, quoted verbatim:
Spam / Self-Promotion / Affiliate Links
Do not spam or promote your own projects too much. We expect you to follow this [Reddit self-promotion guideline](https://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion). Promoted apps must be production ready and have docs. No direct ads for web hosting or VPS. Only mention your service in comments
Snapshot only — check the live rules before posting.
When to post in r/selfhosted
Hours whose posts drew the most discussion, across the 100 most recent:
- 21:00 UTC (4pm ET / 1pm PT) — averaged 92.2 comments per post
- 09:00 UTC (4am ET / 1am PT) — averaged 51.3 comments per post
- 06:00 UTC (1am ET / 10pm PT) — averaged 47.4 comments per post
A tie-breaker, not a rule — see why timing matters less than you would like.
Who should watch this subreddit
Open-source and open-core vendors, self-hostable tools, and anyone selling hardware or storage. A poor fit for conventional SaaS.
Related communities: r/devops, r/dataengineering, r/webdev.
Frequently asked questions
Can you promote your business in r/selfhosted?
Depends entirely on the product. Self-hostable and open-source tools are welcomed and often promoted enthusiastically by members; cloud-only subscription products are structurally at odds with why the community exists.
Is r/selfhosted good for finding leads?
Either almost nobody reads it, or promotion is banned outright. The community is engaged and technical, but its defining preference is not to buy hosted software.
How active is r/selfhosted?
About 37 posts a day from 814k members, with a median of 14 comments per post — real discussion on most posts.
Find the subreddit that is worth your time instead
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