Cloud-Exit Stack — own photo, drive and mail server
Lived exit from US cloud services: Immich instead of Google Photos, Nextcloud instead of Dropbox, Matrix instead of WhatsApp, own Postfix mailserver instead of Gmail. In daily personal use.
- Year
- 2024
- Duration
- In daily production use since 2024
- Role
- Concept, setup, operation (solo, AI-augmented)
- Sector
- selbst
What is this?
Not a client project — my personal, daily-used cloud-exit stack. I built it because I no longer wanted my data to land in US clouds as training material and ad-profile fodder. Today it is also the proof of concept that I can set up exactly the same for you.
What’s in the stack?
| Domain | Cloud standard (out) | Sovereign (in) |
|---|---|---|
| Photos & videos | Google Photos, iCloud | Immich (Open Source) |
| Files & sync | Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive | Nextcloud (Open Source) |
| Calendar, contacts, tasks | Google Calendar, iCloud | Nextcloud (CalDAV/CardDAV) |
| Messenger | WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram | Matrix |
| Gmail, Outlook | Own Postfix/Dovecot on Hetzner (alternative: mailbox.org) | |
| Backup | Time Machine, OneDrive | restic + Hetzner Storage Box |
| AI chat | ChatGPT, Gemini | Llama 3.3 local |
| Banking aggregation | commercial finance apps | Own PSD2 solution |
What does such a setup cost?
- Central server: Hetzner CCX23 (4 dedicated vCPU / 16 GB / 240 GB SSD) — ~€25/month. Comfortably enough for family + 5-15 people across all services.
- Additional storage: Hetzner Storage Box 1 TB ~€4/month.
- Software licenses: open source — no recurring license costs.
- Domain + TLS: €10-15/year domain. TLS via Let’s Encrypt for free.
→ Total: ~€30-40/month for a stack that quickly costs €50-200/month with US clouds.
Why I do this
Because I find it absurd how matter-of-factly personal data is given away today — geo locations, relationship networks, payment behaviour, photo content, calendars, even sleep data. This data increasingly trains AI models. And AI models make decisions about us: insurance rates, credit scores, perhaps tomorrow job applications.
Whoever shares data today hands over decision power tomorrow.
That’s not conspiracy theory — it’s the current industry direction. My approach: stop participating where I can prevent it. And offer exactly these solutions to others.
What I offer to clients
See the dedicated service Cloud-Exit & Data Sovereignty — three packages from family photo server to complete law-firm stack.
Outcomes
- Full personal exit from Google Photos, Drive, Gmail and WhatsApp
- Own photo server (Immich) with smart search but no AI tracking
- Own drive (Nextcloud) with calendar/contacts sync for the family
- Own messenger (Matrix) with bridges to contacts not yet convinced
- Daily restic backups on a separate Hetzner Storage Box
- Documented experience: effort, costs, pitfalls — for client projects