Welcome to my Server!

Here I host a lot of random things. There is even some useful stuff!🎉🎉

You can navigate easily and efficiently between the different services I host using the sidebar. Those that are publicly accessible at least 😜.

Why have your own server?

A desire to understand and experiment

One of the best ways to understand something is to do it yourself. In any case, it’s often the most interesting approach. Following this logic, what better way to understand today’s digital world than to recreate it, on a small scale, on my own computer? It’s an idea that’s been with me since I first started studying computer science.
Our world is always active, always in motion, and above all, it’s never turned off. Our infrastructure must be available at all times, without interruption. To simulate it, I couldn’t make do with my personal computer, which I turn on, use, and turn off as needed. An old laptop or a mini-PC, energy-efficient but capable of running 24/7, was exactly what I needed.

Nowadays, when I'm interested in some technology, rather than hope I get to work with it someday, I set it up on my own server, often using Open Source projects. This allows me to experiment its uses and limitation, even the one that aren't widely discussed.
It does not make me an expert, but it gives me a good understanding of things.

A matter of privacy

Nowadays, when you open a website, you’re almost inevitably greeted by a banner asking you to accept “cookies.” But what exactly is a cookie? If you read a little more closely, you’ll find that it’s a tool used by hundreds (?!) of partners to, among other things, “learn more about their audience” (you) or “display personalized ads”. But why on earth should hundreds of different entities around the world get any information about me when all I wanted was to see a recipe for leek quiche?!

The reason is simple: this information is valuable, it allows advertisers to reach the audience most likely to respond to their ads, making them more effective and thus more profitable. Online advertising on internet isn't a problem in and of itself, it's actually quite the opposite! Without it, internet would never have developed into the one we know today, with all it's freely accessible website and services. Companies using their knowledge of their customer to provide them with personalized deals and ads isn't, as far as I am concerned, problematic either. Things go too far when the data collected by various entities is pooled, whether through sharing or sale, to create a comprehensive and detailed profile of an individual. The existence of these profiles enables an unprecedented level of personalization not only for advertisements but also for search engine results, news aggregators, social media platforms, and so on. Whether the amount of power granted to private companies by the (perfectly legal) usage of those data is acceptable, is a matter of opinion. The same debate legitimately arises for any government seeking to acquire such data.

But what about illegal uses? Even if we place absolute trust in the proper use of our data by those who collected it and those who obtain and use it legally (even if that trust does not always seem warranted[1][2][3]), what about those who obtain it illegally? Any data that exists is susceptible to theft, and even though some companies and governments are better at data protection than others, none can guarantee they will be forever spared from data breaches [4][5][6]. Once acquired, a malicious actor can use this data to take over accounts you already own (identity theft), carry out financial fraud attempts (often through phishing attacks), or even engage in blackmail and demand ransoms[7].
. Many of these problems could have been avoided if only less data had been collected in the first place.

Having my own server allows me, my family and friends to avoid some of this data collection. It reduces our dependence on services provided by tech giants, and helps protect our most sensitive data (photos, contacts, private messages, administrative documents, backups, etc.) by keeping it on devices we consider “trustworthy” rather than sending it to a remote, unknown server. In return, I must assume responsibility for protecting my data and that of my loved ones.
I regain ownership of my data.

A matter of cost

Even with advertisements, not everything on internet is free. That is particularly true for services designed to be respectful of privacy, as they cannot use your data to generate a profit. So how does my server, which cost me 600€ to buy and less than 15€ in electricity each year compares to paid services?
Here is a a non exhaustive list of the services I can provide for all my family and friends:

  • 4TB of storage (total)
  • Free VPN to France when travelling
  • Automatic backups / Cloud Storage of any kind
  • Collaborative document editing
  • Photo gallery, with AI tools to do face recognition and dynamic search
  • Synchronisation of calendars, contacts and passwords
  • Host video game server
  • Private, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) messaging service
  • Host small LLMs for basic use

Now let's have a look at some subscription services that can provide some of those features. When available, I'll look at family offers, as they are closer to what I aim to provide with my server. When available, I'll use the yearly price and convert it to a monthly figure, as this is usually more cost-effective than monthly subscriptions.

  • Google: The "Premium" plan (8.33€/month) includes 2TB of of shareable storage for up to five people. It can be used for automatic backups, collaborative document editing, photo galleries and all kinds of premium AI features[8]. It must be said that this is an attractive plan, but using Google does nothing for your privacy.
  • Proton: The "Proton Family" plan (24€/month) for 6 persons provides 3TB of storage that can be used for automatic backups, basic collaborative document editing, private messaging through end-to-end encrypted (E2EE), worldwide VPN and synchronization of calendars, contacts and passwords[9].
  • Ente: The "Popular" plan (5€/month) provides one person with 200GB of E2EE storage for a photo gallery with face recognition and other AI capabilities. the "Pro" plan (10€/month) provides 1TB[10].
  • Game servers: The cost changes significantly from game to game and site to site. However, as a general guideline, a low-end server typically costs €10 per month for each game[11][12].

This is just a tiny sample of the available offerings, but it’s enough to estimate the value of the services provided by my server. Based on my usage and that of my family and friends, I estimate that I provide the equivalent of €30 to €40 worth of services per month. Based on this estimate, the server would pay for itself in just two years. In reality, my family and I use certain features of my server that we wouldn’t have paid for. So the server isn’t quite as profitable as that, but it’s far from being a financial drain.

About this website

How it was built

This site started out as a good old-fashioned static site, written in plain HTML and served by an HTTP Server. It would probably have felt right at home on the 80s internet, or even earlier.
One day, I decided to make it look nicer. I looked at a few other software engineers' and programmers' websites for inspiration. I found that most of them were either dark with red or light blue tones and complex animations, giving them a futuristic or IT vibe, or very simple and white, a very professional look. Neither of those options suited me. I chose a more vibrant and colored theme, without falling into the exuberant, as I felt it suited me better. I wasn't quite satisfied yet though, I wanted nicer animations and smoother transitions between pages. It was time to add some client side JavaScript.
As soon as the animation were done, I started adding support for multiple versions of the website, in different languages. Initially all the logic was client side, but being one of the 4 people on earth that sometimes disable JavaScript in his browser, I needed the translations to work without it. There were two solutions, either create a duplicate page for each language, or turn the website from a static one to dynamic. I chose the latter because it is more flexible and would lead to a cleaner result in the long run.

The first version of this website wasn't very good looking, but it was functional!

I already had experience with various backend frameworks, including Flask and Django in Python, as well as Symfony in PHP. However, I had never tried a Node.js framework, so this was the opportunity. I chose Express, a simple, high-performance, and easy-to-learn solution with a solid reputation. I have barely scratched the surface of what this framework can do, but so far, it has been a pleasure to work with. The only other dependencies I use are ejs, which allows for templating inside of the source HTML file, and yaml, which I use to access the website's content translations. It all sits behind an nginx reverse proxy.

What's coming next?

This site is fit for purpose as is, so it is unlikely to receive any major revamp in the near future. What you can expect on the other hand is some incremental improvements and new pages when I find something interesting to talk about. I might even add a blog section, so that I can talk about other stuff than just what I'm hosting.

Is there a problem?

If something is missing, please remember that if you are accessing this website over the internet, you are not served the same version as if you accessed it locally. Maybe the resource you are looking for is only available locally, please try connecting through the VPN. For any other issues, please contact me by email: admin@serveur-bouquet.fr

References

  1. Le Monde avec AFP, 04 Septembre 2025 "Google condamné aux Etats-Unis à payer 425,7 millions de dollars pour atteinte à la vie privée" , Le Monde. accessed on 27/04/2026
  2. CNIL, 03 Septembre 2025 "Cookies dĂ©posĂ©s sans consentement : la CNIL sanctionne SHEIN d’une amende de 150 millions d’euros" , CNIL. accessed on 27/04/2026
  3. AmĂ©lie Ruhlmann, 05 Septembre 2025 "Bruxelles inflige une amende de 3 milliards d’euros Ă  Google pour «pratiques abusives» dans la publicitĂ©" , Le Figaro. accessed on 27/04/2026
  4. Le Monde, 10 Octobre 2025 "Discord : un prestataire du rĂ©seau social victime d’une importante fuite de donnĂ©es" , Le Monde. accessed on 27/04/2026
  5. Cassim Montilla, 19 Février 2026 "AprÚs le hack des impÎts, les données de 53 millions de Français exposées par une faille de sécurité critique chez IDMerit" , Frandroid. accessed on 27/04/2026
  6. bonjourlafuite.eu.org
  7. CNIL, 26 Novembre 2025 Cybercriminalité : risques et conséquences pour les données personnelles , CNIL. accessed on 27/04/2026
  8. Google One , accessed on 27/04/2026
  9. Proton, accessed on 27/04/2026
  10. Ente, accessed on 27/04/2026
  11. Modrinth, accessed on 27/04/2026

Credits

All illustrations found in this page are provides by Vector Juice on Magnific.com