Docker seems the way to go for me now! Thank you for the nice write up.
I definitely do not now what I am doing so the word of caution is greatly appreciated!
The whole thing about remotely accessing is probably something I put on my ToDo list as soon as I get a service up and running. Nevertheless reading it and just knowing about Wireguard and Tailscale is a huge benefit to me.
Is there a personal recommendation which of your listed projects to get started with?
That takes away a lot of stress. Knowing to just get started and ignore the best approach instead of just a getting started approach and learn as you go.
For the longest time I wanted to get rid if my google drive or google calendar and host one myself.
Email as I have read is something more advanced but I would like to self host my email as well.
Photos eventually too.
As a lot of people have recommended nextcloud that seems like where my interest might be heading.
As a starting point. Are there any hardware recommendations for a toy home server?