r/selfhosted's most recommended apps, ranked by GitHub data

*The apps r/selfhosted recommends most often are Immich, Jellyfin, Vaultwarden, Pi-hole (or AdGuard Home), Paperless-ngx, Home Assistant, Uptime Kuma, Syncthing and Nextcloud, followed by tools like Homepage, Nginx Proxy Manager, the arr apps and Audiobookshelf. Below, we list the community's perennial favourites and rank them by a number you can check yourself: GitHub stars, alongside commits in the last 12 months to show which ones are still moving. All 20 are open source and run in Docker.

How this list was built

r/selfhosted has no official leaderboard, and we did not scrape or count Reddit posts. Instead, we started from the apps that come up repeatedly in the subreddit's recurring threads ("what are you self-hosting?", "what should I install first?", "share your dashboard") and in community resources such as the awesome-selfhosted list. Then we checked each one against the appsgit catalog:

• Open-source licence and a public GitHub repository.
• Not archived, with commits in the last year.
• A Docker image or Compose setup.

The final order uses GitHub stars, a snapshot from October 6, 2026. Stars measure attention, not quality, so read the commit column too: a mature, focused project can be excellent with few commits.

The ranking

#	App	What it replaces	Stars	Commits (12 mo)	Licence
1	Immich	Google Photos	115,648	2,638	AGPL-3.0
2	Stirling-PDF	Online PDF tools	93,634	1,925	Apache-2.0
3	Uptime Kuma	UptimeRobot, Pingdom	92,149	1,359	MIT
4	Home Assistant	SmartThings, Google Home	91,266	17,497	Apache-2.0
5	Syncthing	Dropbox sync	89,175	223	MPL-2.0
6	Vaultwarden	1Password, LastPass	68,572	181	AGPL-3.0
7	Pi-hole	Browser ad blockers, network-wide	61,167	215	EUPL-1.2
8	Jellyfin	Plex, Netflix for your own media	57,817	2,025	GPL-2.0
9	Paperless-ngx	Filing cabinets, cloud scanners	46,308	1,625	GPL-3.0
10	Portainer	Docker command line	38,621	789	Zlib
11	AdGuard Home	Network-wide ad blocking	37,245	235	GPL-3.0
12	Nextcloud	Google Drive, Microsoft 365	37,003	7,289	AGPL-3.0
13	Frigate	Ring, cloud camera NVRs	36,390	1,445	MIT
14	Nginx Proxy Manager	Hand-written proxy configs	34,325	798	MIT
15	Homepage	Browser bookmarks	32,989	544	GPL-3.0
16	Karakeep	Pocket	29,464	824	AGPL-3.0
17	Actual	YNAB, Mint	29,330	1,392	MIT
18	Navidrome	Spotify for your own music	23,986	814	GPL-3.0
19	Audiobookshelf	Audible library, podcast apps	14,555	487	GPL-3.0
20	Mealie	Recipe sites and apps	13,451	1,364	AGPL-3.0

Why these apps keep getting recommended

The "first install" tier: Immich, Jellyfin, Uptime Kuma

Immich is the clearest success story in self-hosting: a Google Photos replacement with automatic phone backup, face recognition and a polished mobile app, plus one of the busiest repositories in the catalog. For many newcomers it is the app that makes self-hosting worth the effort. Our Immich guide gets it running, and Immich vs PhotoPrism vs Ente explains why it usually wins.

Jellyfin is the community's default media server, largely because it is free and unrestricted; see Jellyfin vs Plex. Uptime Kuma appears on nearly every dashboard screenshot because it is easy, pretty and immediately useful.

The "protect your data" tier: Vaultwarden, Paperless-ngx, Syncthing

Vaultwarden is the standard answer to "which password manager should I self-host?" It works with the official Bitwarden apps and runs in one small container. Its low commit count reflects a mature, focused codebase rather than neglect; Vaultwarden vs Bitwarden covers the details.

Paperless-ngx turns scanned letters and PDFs into a searchable archive with OCR and automatic tagging. Subreddit threads about going paperless almost always end up here. Start with the Paperless-ngx guide.

Syncthing keeps folders in sync between devices without any server in the middle, which is why it is often recommended alongside, or instead of, Nextcloud. See Nextcloud vs Syncthing.

The network tier: Pi-hole and AdGuard Home

Network-wide ad blocking is a classic first project. Pi-hole is the long-time favourite; AdGuard Home is a single binary with encrypted DNS built in. Opinions are split, so we wrote Pi-hole vs AdGuard Home.

The plumbing tier: Portainer, Nginx Proxy Manager, Homepage

These are the tools that make the rest manageable. Portainer gives a web UI for containers, Nginx Proxy Manager puts HTTPS in front of everything without editing config files (see Traefik vs Nginx Proxy Manager), and Homepage is the start page behind many of the dashboards people share.

The quality-of-life tier

Home Assistant is the most active project on this list by a wide margin. Frigate adds local AI object detection to security cameras. Actual is a popular budgeting app, Karakeep saves links and articles with AI tagging, Navidrome and Audiobookshelf handle music and audiobooks, and Mealie imports recipes from any website.

Also frequently recommended

A few favourites did not fit the table but appear constantly:

• Tailscale for remote access. It is not fully self-hosted, but Headscale is an open-source implementation of its control server.
• *The arr stack: Sonarr, Radarr and friends, covered in our Plex and Jellyfin home server guide.
• Reverse proxies such as Caddy and Traefik, for people who prefer config files to a web UI.

How to read the commit column

Stars and commits tell different stories, and r/selfhosted discussions often weigh both.

• High stars, high commits (Immich, Home Assistant, Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Stirling-PDF): large, fast-moving projects. Expect frequent releases, read release notes before upgrading and pin major versions.
• High stars, low commits (Vaultwarden, Syncthing, Pi-hole, AdGuard Home): mature tools that do one job well. Low churn is a strength for software that guards passwords, files or DNS.
• Mid stars, high commits (Mealie, Actual, Frigate): projects in a growth phase, often adding major features each release.

None of these numbers say whether an app fits your needs. They do tell you how much change to expect, which matters when you are responsible for upgrades. Every app page on appsgit shows the live numbers, the latest release and the licence, so you can check a project before committing your data to it.

What the community consistently advises

Beyond app picks, r/selfhosted threads repeat the same practical advice:

• Back up before you trust an app with anything important. The 3-2-1 rule comes up in almost every data-loss story.
• Do not expose admin panels to the internet. Use a VPN for anything that is not meant for other people.
• Start small. One reliable mini PC beats a rack of noisy servers; our homelab for beginners guide explains what to buy.
• Use Docker Compose. It is the common language of nearly every install guide; learn it with our Docker Compose tutorial.

For a ranking based purely on GitHub activity across the whole catalog, see the 25 best self-hosted apps in 2026.