Replying to Avatar Derek Ross

Podcasters: what are your thoughts on hosting your media yourself versus using a hosting provider?

I'm thinking about using Castopod. It's FOSS. I can easily add the Podcasting 2.0 tags. I already have a server. I already have it running and all configured 🤓

Has anyone used this platform for their podcast?
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metadavid 10mo ago

It’s really about tradeoffs. :) I’m not sure what there is to gain from self-hosting. Censorship is virtually a non-issue. But if it’s more to learn and FAFO, then maybe.

Just things to think about:

1) Could affect distribution because even though RSS feeds are web1, not every feed is compatible with every player, so you’ll need to be constantly tweaking that.

2) Even with a strong server + bandwidth, you’re still vulnerable to demand spikes

3) Podcast analytics are estimates (not actually listenership), so self-hosting means much less of a data set to work with and having to be liberal with extrapolation/estimates.

Overall for most it isn’t worth it, but I’d say if it’s more of a FAFO/curiosity thing, sure.

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Eric P 10mo ago

You can use OP3 for analytics for self-hosted podcasts: https://op3.dev/

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metadavid 10mo ago

Nice! I don't think you even necessarily need OP3 to get some sort of analytics. You can self host and get some analytics based on requests or if you're using a provider like Spotify Creators (formerly Anchor), and it gets a little more precise with some data like # of subscribers and demographics since Spotify has sufficiently high market share, and there's some services out there where they solely focus on estimating podcast analytics.

Where just about everyone lands on it is hosting is better off and more cost-effective outsourced to the specialists so that burden can be taken off the podcaster. But of course, there's something to be said about fulfilling curiosity. 😉