I would define hosting in the cloud as "self-hosting" because you perform the act of hosting that thing and thus have full control over it.
Yes it's not the same as hosting as your own hardware but I would argue that it accomplishes the same goals. The goal is to get other people out of your data. With a "service" the underlying company has every incentive to look at your data and use that to improve it's service, but when you host something yourself with a provider, it's in that providers best interest to never look at your data.
For me it all comes down to the goals of the people your are doing business with. With Cloudflare at least, their goal is to just upsell me on hosting equipment, they couldn't give a rats ass what I'm hosting on that hardware so long it's not illegal.
I think the reality is the goal posts are shifting on owning your own data, and apps. The idea that self-hosted is not on your _own_ hardware is crazy to me.
Is it a "goal post" shift or an insidious confusion? Clouds can be regulated, guard-railed, censored, spied on. Since your local computer is also just "cloud," it too can be regulated. This makes the mental-model change: what used to be "my personal thing" now becomes "a thing in the common network". That's different; it represents different values.
It is confusing, I agree. IMO we should have "self-running" and "self-hosting". Self-running if I provide the hardware, self-hosting if I manage it. Or swap the term, still not sure but there is a difference between you are the one maintaining it and where does it run.
I would describe it as externally hosted yet managed specifically because someone else is most likely, whether they admit to it or not, recording some sort of logs on my service and data and that is a choice that I do not own or, in some cases, have access to.
I think it's a pretty clear line. Self hosted means you can run it locally in your home, using a saas platform or vps is just a convenience, not a requirement.
No, crazy would be owning the router and cables/satellites as well as producing your own power and having a manufacturing plant for hardware capable of running the software.
People have been running public websites off of the back of their ISPs since the 90s. I know a few today that are nothing but a Raspberry PI running Pocketbase.
It scales for the intended audience.
Self hosting doesn't mean you need to build the next AWS.
For all the people complaining this isn’t self hosted, it’s open source - it’s a relatively minor tweak to replace the AI calls to point to a local model server. Everything else runs locally via wrangler. It’s less than 20 minutes of work by hand, less than a minute to ask AI to do this.
It’s a weird complaint for people who supposedly like hacker culture.
This is like saying you're self-hosting a game server because it's not hosted on the developers' server, but on the server of some other random third party you're paying to run it. No, self-hosting means you run it on hardware you own. Cloudflare is no stranger to redefining completely established terms for marketing reasons (see 'Cloudflare OS'), how about we stop buying it every time?
Eh, it's the phrasing that's off-putting. Things that can be self hosted usually emphasize that first and top most, with a paid option being mentioned 2nd.
Careful with Cloudflare's "free" AI tier if you use paid workers. I was never able to get an answer on why I was billed for their confusing neuron usage for stuff that should have been covered under their usage limits. Their customer support just ignored my ticket. Apparently it's a known issue that they don't give a shit based on discussions in their support Discord.
Not disagreeing because I don’t know anything about this particular situation, but I think if you look at any company’s support discord, you will find that they don’t give a shit because of the sample bias. People whose problems they solved. Don’t end up there.
yeah their billing system truly sucks. One month I was charged exorbitantly for Workers Container usage. There was absolutely zero way to monitor or track your usage until the invoice arrived.
This is great. If this was available a few years ago, I would have looked at this and similar projects to see if I should base my personal use service on. Why send your sometimes relatively private info elsewhere to be profiled? Why not have software that solves for your needs?
As is, I have already been running my own service (with no intent to open source) for years where I decide features, tools and UX that suits me. My UX is substantially different from these chat boxes. It is also multi-user by design. It still needs time investment but the tradeoff is worth for me. Over time, I expect this threshold to keep getting lower and increasing percentage of folks to cross it.
Generally, as that happens with the cost and time to build software trending lower, I think it will be interesting to watch how this dynamic evolves. For example, is it possible "personal OS" systems could emerge that solve the users' needs? I have created many smallish solutions for my needs recently, but they aren't unified in any way and I personally don't have a desire to be that [human] OS.
Durable Objects are the coolest thing I have seen in a while. Code and its data locked away together, frozen when not in use, but ready to go in milliseconds when a request comes in. They are so damn useful.
For those questioning (rightly) the "self-hosted" description, I suspect its a poorly-worded attempt to clarify there is no third-party requirement (eg. the repo is not cloudflare-owned) beyond your own cloudflare account.
Sometimes these "open source" services are a bit misleading as there is a coupling to the org providing them; I think the OP here just means there's nothing extra needed beyond whatever cloudflare commitment you already have.
"Hosted" is the term that describes an application running on someone else's hardware. As opposed to "self-hosted" which describes an application running on my own hardware. There's no need to invent new terms, just use the existing ones properly and this will prevent any confusion.
Claude suggested the same approach for something very similar I asked and ended up deploying and using.
Quite useful and snappy architecture (never used workers or durable objects).
Definitely not self-hosted but whatever, I think you got the msg from all other comments.
I built it without having a chatbot interface cause I don't see much of the point, like I didn't see the improvement in usefulness 5 years ago re "natural language" task creation a la todoist.
Did a side project on Workers and the self host test for me was whether I could run it off Cloudflare at all. Durable Objects and KV bindings meant no, so it was really just deploy it yourself.
Hi HN! I built Talorys, an open-source personal AI agent that runs entirely in your own Cloudflare account.
The idea came from wanting a personal AI assistant that I could own and control, without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
Talorys uses Cloudflare Workers, Workers AI, Durable Objects, and Pages to provide:
AI chat with persistent memory and conversation history
Task, note, and project management
Scheduled reminders and recurring automations
A responsive web interface accessible from any device
Password-protected access with no signup or external accounts
One-command deployment: npx create-talorys@latest
Everything runs in your Cloudflare account. Your data stays under your control, and there's no telemetry or third-party backend operated by me.
It's designed to work within Cloudflare's free-tier limits for personal use. You don't need to manage a VPS, database server, or Docker containers.
The biggest challenge was making deployment simple enough that someone could set up their own AI assistant without manually configuring Cloudflare services.
The project is still early, and I'd love feedback from the HN community, especially on the architecture, security, and what would make a self-hosted personal AI agent genuinely useful.
This was very easy to set up and play around with.
Giving it the ability to access webpages / do searches would be nice!
It seems like the free 10000 "neurons" would cover light daily usage, like maybe 20-30 minutes of back and forth. I spent 500 in a few minutes of chatting until I realized the tasks I had in mind aren't possible.
How often are you running out of gas, so to speak?
This is a neat implementation, regardless of the argument over how it is hosted! There are a number of other systems along the same general lines, but for me the sticking point is that there is no good implementation equivalent to the Alexa devices scattered around my home (and RV!) that allow me to interact via speech. I'm working on one of those now in my copious spare time. (Yes, there are a bunch of rPi projects. Their rates of errors are unacceptably high.)
> without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
But you are hosting it on Cloudflare? There is always a cost when running on someone else's platform that advertises itself as 'free-tier' and it can change at any moment.
This might sound kinda crazy, but I define “self-hosted” as something that I host myself.
To me, "self-hosted" means, either I use a rented hardware or I use a purchased hardware.
If the software can be switched to a rented or purchased hardware (I do not want Cloudflare's offering) then it is "self-host-able" IMO.
I think there are open source Cloudflare alternative hosting software.
Self-hosted but not self-owned.
I would call that self configured, cloud hosted.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting_(network)
6 replies →
I would define hosting in the cloud as "self-hosting" because you perform the act of hosting that thing and thus have full control over it.
Yes it's not the same as hosting as your own hardware but I would argue that it accomplishes the same goals. The goal is to get other people out of your data. With a "service" the underlying company has every incentive to look at your data and use that to improve it's service, but when you host something yourself with a provider, it's in that providers best interest to never look at your data.
For me it all comes down to the goals of the people your are doing business with. With Cloudflare at least, their goal is to just upsell me on hosting equipment, they couldn't give a rats ass what I'm hosting on that hardware so long it's not illegal.
Can “on-prem” solve this debate?
You can self-host on-prem or in the cloud.
2 replies →
Yourself? In your brain?
No, on your hardware.
If someone else can fat finger a delete, it’s not self hosted.
2 replies →
I think the reality is the goal posts are shifting on owning your own data, and apps. The idea that self-hosted is not on your _own_ hardware is crazy to me.
Is it a "goal post" shift or an insidious confusion? Clouds can be regulated, guard-railed, censored, spied on. Since your local computer is also just "cloud," it too can be regulated. This makes the mental-model change: what used to be "my personal thing" now becomes "a thing in the common network". That's different; it represents different values.
It is confusing, I agree. IMO we should have "self-running" and "self-hosting". Self-running if I provide the hardware, self-hosting if I manage it. Or swap the term, still not sure but there is a difference between you are the one maintaining it and where does it run.
Self-hosting is when you install and run something for yourself.
Whether you use the cloud, or a vps, or a dedicated bare metal server, or your own equipment at home is all self hosting.
“Self contained”? Like a container, run on Cloudflare, run locally, run anywhere (if supported by the container and required underlying primitives).
1 reply →
I agree.
I would describe it as externally hosted yet managed specifically because someone else is most likely, whether they admit to it or not, recording some sort of logs on my service and data and that is a choice that I do not own or, in some cases, have access to.
Where do you draw the line? Some SaaS acceptable? VPS? Bare metal? Or your own server in your own home?
I think it's a pretty clear line. Self hosted means you can run it locally in your home, using a saas platform or vps is just a convenience, not a requirement.
6 replies →
I think the line is obvious... If you can't unplug it, you're not self-hosting.
You should have the option to host it at home. Then you may choose to host in a vps. Must be vendor agnostic.
1 reply →
I would personally draw the line a the data centres. If your infrastructure involves data centres, this is not self hosting. In my opinion.
IMO physical hardware in your own material possession, so only the last of your examples.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hosting_(network)
Should be “self managed.”
(You can manage it, the resources, replace the software, etc.)
All he had to do was to title it properly: 'An AI agent hosted on Cloudflare's free tier'.
No, crazy would be owning the router and cables/satellites as well as producing your own power and having a manufacturing plant for hardware capable of running the software.
To make an apple pie from scratch, one must first create the universe?
People have been running public websites off of the back of their ISPs since the 90s. I know a few today that are nothing but a Raspberry PI running Pocketbase.
It scales for the intended audience.
Self hosting doesn't mean you need to build the next AWS.
I think op is thinking about local.
1 reply →
Is this an Elon reference?
buy a few shares of NET - you are partial owner now - problem solved :)
honestly the fact that Cloudflare pays for infra instead of you is even more impressive ngl
As impressive as Facebook paying for your social media experience.
For all the people complaining this isn’t self hosted, it’s open source - it’s a relatively minor tweak to replace the AI calls to point to a local model server. Everything else runs locally via wrangler. It’s less than 20 minutes of work by hand, less than a minute to ask AI to do this.
It’s a weird complaint for people who supposedly like hacker culture.
Yeah completely agree. Jeez someone made something cool.
It’s self hosted as in not by an ai provider. This is obvious.
Sure it’s set up to run on some infrastructure but just tweak it if you want to and stop complaining.
This is like saying you're self-hosting a game server because it's not hosted on the developers' server, but on the server of some other random third party you're paying to run it. No, self-hosting means you run it on hardware you own. Cloudflare is no stranger to redefining completely established terms for marketing reasons (see 'Cloudflare OS'), how about we stop buying it every time?
But it’s not self hosted like in self hosted.
Why add a false feature claim if the true features are cool enough?
Who said they like hacker culture in 2026?
Here my program with feature A, ok without feature A, but you can add it with 20 min of work.
Are we now adding all possible features to the description just because they can be added by hand or LLM?
And since when is hacker culture about false advertising
Eh, it's the phrasing that's off-putting. Things that can be self hosted usually emphasize that first and top most, with a paid option being mentioned 2nd.
Careful with Cloudflare's "free" AI tier if you use paid workers. I was never able to get an answer on why I was billed for their confusing neuron usage for stuff that should have been covered under their usage limits. Their customer support just ignored my ticket. Apparently it's a known issue that they don't give a shit based on discussions in their support Discord.
I got my bill reversed after having an AI agent pester them long enough
was the ai agent running on their free tier
Not disagreeing because I don’t know anything about this particular situation, but I think if you look at any company’s support discord, you will find that they don’t give a shit because of the sample bias. People whose problems they solved. Don’t end up there.
Only if the support discord isn't actually for support and just for venting, which seems to be the case for Cloudflare's.
1 reply →
yeah their billing system truly sucks. One month I was charged exorbitantly for Workers Container usage. There was absolutely zero way to monitor or track your usage until the invoice arrived.
You should put anything like this on a privacy.com card with a monthly limit.
This is great. If this was available a few years ago, I would have looked at this and similar projects to see if I should base my personal use service on. Why send your sometimes relatively private info elsewhere to be profiled? Why not have software that solves for your needs?
As is, I have already been running my own service (with no intent to open source) for years where I decide features, tools and UX that suits me. My UX is substantially different from these chat boxes. It is also multi-user by design. It still needs time investment but the tradeoff is worth for me. Over time, I expect this threshold to keep getting lower and increasing percentage of folks to cross it.
Generally, as that happens with the cost and time to build software trending lower, I think it will be interesting to watch how this dynamic evolves. For example, is it possible "personal OS" systems could emerge that solve the users' needs? I have created many smallish solutions for my needs recently, but they aren't unified in any way and I personally don't have a desire to be that [human] OS.
Durable Objects are the coolest thing I have seen in a while. Code and its data locked away together, frozen when not in use, but ready to go in milliseconds when a request comes in. They are so damn useful.
I've read yesterday how someone's DO racked $34k bill, someone's else's $17k.
They're pretty cool indeed, just pretty risky.
While Durable Objects are a different story, data coupled with code brings up awful memories of MacOS FileMaker
I'm not sure I understand the use-case or target audience for this. Selfhosted on cloudflare is a great oxymoron though.
Unless you use cloudflare tunnel to host it
Couldn’t seem to load the screen shot? GitHub being weird https://github.com/rociiu/talorys/blob/main/docs/screenshots...
This is the first I’m hearing about Cloudflare’s worker AI product. I see they provide 10,000 neurons a day on the free tier. What on earth is that?
10k neuron is roughly 0.11 USD for the usage https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers-ai/platform/pricin...
Looks like it's about 4M input tokens or 0.5M output tokens with their cheapest model `@cf/meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct`
With `@cf/qwen/qwen3.8-27b` it's 240K input tokens and 34,000 output tokens
A fantasy currency like in shitty mobile games to obfuscate the actual amount of money spent.
There's nothing self-hosted about relying on Cloudflare for _literally_ everything.
Sure, but this is a free thing for some to play around with. Nothing literal, reliant or histrionic about it. :)
Call it "A free personal AI agent" if "free" is what you care about, self-hosted doesn't imply free nor vice-versa.
1 reply →
For those questioning (rightly) the "self-hosted" description, I suspect its a poorly-worded attempt to clarify there is no third-party requirement (eg. the repo is not cloudflare-owned) beyond your own cloudflare account.
Sometimes these "open source" services are a bit misleading as there is a coupling to the org providing them; I think the OP here just means there's nothing extra needed beyond whatever cloudflare commitment you already have.
"Self-managed" seems the better term.
"Hosted" is the term that describes an application running on someone else's hardware. As opposed to "self-hosted" which describes an application running on my own hardware. There's no need to invent new terms, just use the existing ones properly and this will prevent any confusion.
Isn't it a free tier until they decide you should start paying or leave?
Claude suggested the same approach for something very similar I asked and ended up deploying and using. Quite useful and snappy architecture (never used workers or durable objects). Definitely not self-hosted but whatever, I think you got the msg from all other comments.
I built it without having a chatbot interface cause I don't see much of the point, like I didn't see the improvement in usefulness 5 years ago re "natural language" task creation a la todoist.
Did a side project on Workers and the self host test for me was whether I could run it off Cloudflare at all. Durable Objects and KV bindings meant no, so it was really just deploy it yourself.
[flagged]
[flagged]
> Your personal AI agent. Your own cloud.
Sorry, I don't own any cloud.
In any case, I think the generally accepted definition of self-hosting has broadened
all of the people disagreeing in this thread are evidence to the contrary
Used to be broader. Some people wish to narrow it
Cloudflare worker AI is verrrrry slow for user interactive use cases. Fine for background jobs or evals.
Neat. Gonna have to give this a try.
FYI. Give Claude a cf key. Done. All work is now a prompt.
[dead]
[flagged]
[flagged]
[dead]
[flagged]
Hi HN! I built Talorys, an open-source personal AI agent that runs entirely in your own Cloudflare account.
The idea came from wanting a personal AI assistant that I could own and control, without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
Talorys uses Cloudflare Workers, Workers AI, Durable Objects, and Pages to provide:
AI chat with persistent memory and conversation history Task, note, and project management Scheduled reminders and recurring automations A responsive web interface accessible from any device Password-protected access with no signup or external accounts One-command deployment: npx create-talorys@latest Everything runs in your Cloudflare account. Your data stays under your control, and there's no telemetry or third-party backend operated by me.
It's designed to work within Cloudflare's free-tier limits for personal use. You don't need to manage a VPS, database server, or Docker containers.
The biggest challenge was making deployment simple enough that someone could set up their own AI assistant without manually configuring Cloudflare services.
The project is still early, and I'd love feedback from the HN community, especially on the architecture, security, and what would make a self-hosted personal AI agent genuinely useful.
GitHub: https://github.com/rociiu/talorys
It's MIT licensed. Contributions and suggestions are welcome!
This was very easy to set up and play around with.
Giving it the ability to access webpages / do searches would be nice!
It seems like the free 10000 "neurons" would cover light daily usage, like maybe 20-30 minutes of back and forth. I spent 500 in a few minutes of chatting until I realized the tasks I had in mind aren't possible.
How often are you running out of gas, so to speak?
A suggestion: write the reader yourself next time you’re launching a product/project. It’s painful to always be reading this Claudeish prose.
This is a neat implementation, regardless of the argument over how it is hosted! There are a number of other systems along the same general lines, but for me the sticking point is that there is no good implementation equivalent to the Alexa devices scattered around my home (and RV!) that allow me to interact via speech. I'm working on one of those now in my copious spare time. (Yes, there are a bunch of rPi projects. Their rates of errors are unacceptably high.)
This is a neat idea, but I wouldn’t say you aren’t relying on someone else's hosted service. Cloudflare isn’t a public utility quite yet.
So instead of relying on someone's hosted service, this is relying on someone's 4 hosted services?
That’s great! Where do I download cloudflare?
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
2 replies →
Rebuild it with swarm of agents in rust
Except for Workers AI, I don't see any reason this wouldn't run on celld.
1 reply →
from the internet
1 reply →
> without paying a monthly subscription or relying on someone else's hosted service.
But you are hosting it on Cloudflare? There is always a cost when running on someone else's platform that advertises itself as 'free-tier' and it can change at any moment.
[dead]