Self-Hosting a Gopher Hole vs Hosting on a VPS
                 by Christopher Williams
                        2025-04-18

Updated 2025-06-13 with latest RackNerd deals.

I’ve been thinking about this a bit lately: should one
self-host their gopher hole or host it on a VPS? I currently
host this hole on a VPS but I’ve considered hosting it on a
low-powered computer at home. Here are my thoughts on it.

A VPS, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a Virtual
Private Server. Essentially, it’s a virtual computer hosted
in a datacenter that you can do almost anything with (within
reason and within the provider’s Terms of Service).

Note that I’m comparing self-hosting against hosting on
a VPS rather than on a dedicated server, since a VPS can
be had for much less than a dedicated server so is more
comparable to self-hosting in that regard. Also, I’m in the
US, so all monetary comparisons will be US-centric.

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                       Self-hosting
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Obviously with self-hosting you have more control over your
environment than with a VPS. It’s your own computer on your
own network, after all. The only thing that’s not truly
_yours_ is the Internet connection (you have to pay an ISP
in some form to get access to the Internet).

The downsides?

* You’re at the mercy of your ISP for Internet
  connectivity.

* Electricity costs money.

* The computer itself costs money.


# Internet connectivity

Some people are blessed to have very few or no Internet
connectivity issues. I haven’t been so lucky. When I had Cox
as my ISP, I’d see fairly regular outages; in fact, there’s
a reason people coined the term "Coxing" (as in "you’re
getting a Coxing") for this sort of thing. I switched to
fiber through a different provider about a year ago which
has been overall better.

ISPs also typically give out dynamic IPs (they often charge
more for static IPs, if they even offer them); you’ll need
to set up some sort of dynamic DNS service to handle this.
And even with dynamic DNS there’s still going to be brief
periods where your domain name points at your old IP every
time your IP changes.

Then again, for a hobby like running a Gopher server those
issues may be acceptable.

Another downside that may be a significant issue for some
people is that your domain points at your home Internet
service’s IP address, largely breaking your anonymity in the
process (it’s trivial to find out what Internet service you
use and your general location from your IP address).

Of course, an ISP might outright block incoming connections
on port 70; if that’s the case then self-hosting is not even
an option for you, unless you host on a non-standard but
otherwise common Gopher port like 7000 or 7070, but that’s
no fun!


# Electricity

The EIA reports that the average cost of electricity is
about 16c/kWh in the US[1]. Some places have much higher
costs (Alaska, Hawaii, New England) and some, much lower
costs (West North Central, East South Central, Mountain),
so take those costs into consideration for your particular
situation if you want to self-host.

If you self-host Gopher on a Raspberry Pi, which is a
reasonable option given how inexpensive and low-power they
are, it would cost about $2.80 per year[2]. Not bad! On the
other hand, hosting on a computer like an Intel NUC (which
draws about 30W) would cost about $42 annually.

Then again, some residential communities (e.g., some condos)
provide electricity at a fixed cost to their tenants, no
matter how much is used[3]. Of course, this really means
that the extra electrical costs will be spread out to the
entire community, but it’s so insignificant that nobody will
notice or care (unless you’re running Gopher on a beefy
mainframe or something).

Another downside is that residential electricity can be not
so reliable (less reliable than the 99.999% reliability that
datacenters often have). This can be mitigated with a UPS
(Uninterruptible Power Supply), but those aren’t free to buy
or to maintain either[4].


# Computer

The computer itself costs money, obviously. In most cases
this is a one-time cost, and the cost of computers drops
over time (not to mention that a computer powerful enough to
run Gopher doesn’t need to cost much at all). A Raspberry
Pi, plenty powerful for Gopher, might cost only $45 (plus
some more for accessories), for example. But it’s still
something to take into consideration.

Of course, this cost would apply if the computer is being
used only for Gopher, which probably isn’t the case for most
people even with a Raspberry Pi.

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                     Hosting on a VPS
------------------------------------------------------------

With a reputable VPS provider, you can have a server with
great uptime (assuming you don’t mess up your own server)
and that’s accessible from nearly anywhere in the world.

The downsides?

* It’s not completely in your control.

* It costs money.


# Not in your control

VPS providers typically (or always?) give you full control
over the OS—it’s your virtual computer to do with as you
see fit (within the ToS, of course, usually meaning you
can’t do anything malicious or otherwise illegal with it).
But besides that, you don’t have full control of the VPS
itself—you don’t have it in your possession, the provider
can take it down at any time (though only for a good reason
if it’s a reputable provider, such as if you’re spamming),
and you no longer have access to it once you stop paying for
it (as opposed to a computer you own which you don’t have to
pay for over and over again).

I know that some people object to letting third-party
companies handle their data (especially anything
"cloud"-like), which I can understand. So this may be a
dealbreaker.


# It costs money

VPSes can vary widely in price. I’ll focus on the lower end
since you don’t need much computing power with Gopher (the
protocol was designed with low-end desktop computers of the
early '90s in mind, after all). This basically means you’ll
likely be running Linux or {Free,Net,Open}BSD or another
*nix OS, or basically anything but Windows (which makes
sense given how unnecessarily bloated and slow Windows is).

One of the lowest-cost yet highly-rated VPS offerings that
I’ve found are with RackNerd[5]. Their currently least
expensive offering is for 1x vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB SSD
storage for $10.96/year[6]. You can find other deals if you
need more RAM or storage and are willing to spend a little
more:

* 2x vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 30 GB SSD storage for $17.66/year[7]

* 3x vCPU, 3.5 GB RAM, 60 GB SSD storage for $29.89/year[8]

* 4x vCPU, 5 GB RAM, 100 GB SSD storage for $54.99/year[9]

(Disclaimer: I earn a small referral income at no cost
to you if you purchase a service through one of those
links. Even if I didn’t, I still wholeheartedly recommend
RackNerd—I have a VPS with them and I’m satisfied with it.)

You really don’t need much to host Gopher, so a $10.96/year
VPS is probably your best bet.

Of course, there’s other VPS providers besides
RackNerd—LowEndBox[10] gives good reviews for DediRock,
CloudServer, and Server Host—so you have plenty of options.

If you do the math, a VPS that costs $10.96/year is roughly
equivalent to self-hosting on a computer that draws 8W
(assuming electricity costs 16c/kWh), so the cost really
isn’t too bad. (Many residential ISPs won’t even offer a
static IP for less than that—I’ve seen one ISP offer a
static IP for an extra $15 per _month_.)

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                  Which should you pick?
------------------------------------------------------------

Which you should pick depends on your specific
circumstances. If you already have a computer running 24/7
or have a VPS for other purposes, for example, it won’t cost
you anything to host Gopher on it. Just use what you have!

If you self-host on a Raspberry Pi, that’ll cost only $2.80
per year in electricity. But if you buy a Raspberry Pi
solely for hosting Gopher, you also need to factor in the
cost of the Pi itself (and necessary accessories like power
supply and SD card). Compared to a $10.96/year VPS, the
costs break even in about 5 years (or longer if you count
all of the Pi’s accessories).

If you value privacy and not giving away your residence’s
geographical location, a VPS may be the better option.

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                      Other options
------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, there’s other options besides self-hosting and
hosting on a VPS. My intention with this post is to compare
the probably two most common and most practical options to
most people (and I wanted to limit it to options I have
experience with). Other options have their own sets of pros
and cons that you’d have to assess.

A third option is to find a friend willing to run their
computer 24/7 (or who already does) and is willing to let
you host Gopher on it (or let you run your own computer on
their network).

A fourth option is to find a shared hackerspace or a similar
location where you can host a computer (either your own or
borrowed or rented). This gives you many of the benefits
of self-hosting while slightly better preserving your
privacy/anonymity.

A fifth option is to simply use a shared Gopher server like
a tilde or pubnix (public Unix) server. This is completely
free (for you) but has its own drawbacks: you don’t get full
access to the server, and you get only a subdirectory under
someone else’s Gopher hole. But if all you need is Gopher
space somewhere, a tilde server is a fine, and I see nothing
wrong with it. In fact, I started on a tilde server before
I started developing my own Gopher server; I was already
renting a cheap VPS at that point, so it made a lot of sense
to host my own Gopher hole on it.

That’s all I can think of for now. I’m sure with enough
creativity you can come up with many other ways to host
Gopher that fit your circumstances.

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                 References and Footnotes
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[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a
[2] This assumes it draws about 2W, but it depends on the
   specific Raspberry Pi model and which peripherals are
   used.
[3] I have a friend who ran a Bitcoin miner years ago (and
   blasted their A/C to compensate) in their condo because
   they had such an arrangement.
[4] On a personal note, those lead-acid batteries are the
   bane of my existence! OK, not really, but they do suck.
[5] https://www.racknerd.com/
[6] https://my.racknerd.com/aff.php?aff=14276&pid=912
[7] https://my.racknerd.com/aff.php?aff=14276&pid=913
[8] https://my.racknerd.com/aff.php?aff=14276&pid=914
[9] https://my.racknerd.com/aff.php?aff=14276&pid=915
[10] https://lowendbox.com

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