Something I do not see discussed enough in privacy circles: the tools developers use daily often send sensitive data to third parties.
Think about it:
- JSON formatters — you paste your API responses (which may contain user data) into random websites
- JWT decoders — you paste authentication tokens into online tools
- QR generators — whatever URLs or data you encode
- SSL checkers — reveals your infrastructure
All of these are trivially self-hostable. I run a full dev toolkit on a $5/mo VPS that handles all of this locally. Zero data ever leaves my server.
The privacy benefits:
- No analytics tracking what you paste
- No third-party logging of your API responses
- No risk of token/credential leaks through browser extensions or third-party JS
- Full control of logs and data retention
For developers who care about privacy (even just for professional/compliance reasons), self-hosting your dev tools is low-hanging fruit.
I wrote a free guide covering the full setup: Self-Hosting Guide for Developers
Anyone else self-hosting their dev tools for privacy reasons?
Never mind it’s slop
I actually wrote this by hand based on my own setup. What part seems off? Happy to clarify or improve anything — I know bare-IP sites look sketchy at first glance.