[Newark] Looking for recommendations: VPS, domain and whether it's worth it?

[Craig Lynch]

There are a considerable amount of questions to read and consider here so grab a cuppa…

I've been thinking about how to 'de-google' and 'un-facebook' oneself for a while now. As days pass and the extent to which on-line privacy invasion continues, I feel it is time I should do something about it for myself.

I've seen a few videos and read articles on how to easily set up one's own VPS and such from the likes of these:

* https://videos.lukesmith.xyz/videos/watch/591bf5dd-b02f-40f7-a2cc-b4929c52cb51 - Luke Smith setting up a VPS with a web server and mail-wizard in one take.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDddKmdLEdg - A walk through of installing Synapse+Riot+Jitsi from scratch on Debian.
* https://join.lemmy.ml/docs/en/administration/administration.html - Information for setting up a Lemmy instance.

just to scratch the surface of my browsing on the subject.

Are there risks to running all of these together in a VPS for my own use? Of course, staying on top of it is the challenge, right?
Maintaining such a server, (that would perhaps do all of these things for me) could be challenging for a number of reasons, primarily staying on top of security updates (I imagine that this can be easily automated), and secondarily, if I break it, I get to keep both pieces and finally the eternal worry of,
"What if someone breaks in?"
One will always be concerned about the data being stored on Someone Else's Computer™, since of course, that's part of why we're looking at this, and to that end, is it feasible to self host? Surely it can't be that traumatic to set up a personal server along with the DDNS requirement ?
Modern consumer routers from ASUS and tp-link to name a couple (not a recommendation of either) seem to have DDNS services available within their firmware and as such, reaching a server on your home network can be easily achieved.
Can one sensibly configure this such that a web facing server is kept separate from one's home network and 'the Internet' isn't let in?

It seems there are ways to reduce the noise of people attempting to break in too:

* https://withblue.ink/2016/07/15/stop-ssh-brute-force-attempts.html
* https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-block-ssh-attacks-on-linux-with-denyhosts/
* https://fedoramagazine.org/protect-your-system-with-fail2ban-and-firewalld-blacklists/

So, I ask for comment, is it worth it? Is it freeing to be in control of your own server and your data?
Should one even bother with a server at all for IM and try to use something decentralised like jami:
* https://jami.net
and encourage others to do the same?
There seems to be a million-and-one VPS and domain providers out there with all sorts of options to choose from; are there any particular VPS providers that you've had good experience with?
If you have done this yourself already, what are your experiences of the set up, is it really as simple as the videos and such describe to do this in a truly secure manner?
What about backup? Should one do this with the intent of backing it up from home, downloading from it regularly?
Once things are locked down in terms of configuration, does the worry of break-ins become, less?

Let me know what you think,

C.