We’ve covered PikaPods many times in the past.  They’re a provider who offers over 100 apps with easy, nearly one click hosting.  You sign up, deposit some funds, and start deploying.  Each app is running in its own Docker container, private to you.  They’re cheap and frankly they’re addictive.

Sure, there are some people who’ll say “I’ll just run my own Docker on my own VPS” and that’s cool.  But there’s also people for whom the “just works” factor is high.  While Docker promises easy deployment, there’s often little (and sometimes maddening) details in getting things to work correctly.  And of course, often apps require some configuration to run properly.  PikaPods does all that hard work for you.

I also like PikaPods for its gallery effect.  They regularly add new apps to the platform, and I get the chance to see new tools, toys, and technologies.

Case in point…three new apps worth checking out!

Immich: Self-Hosted Google Photos Alternative With Family Sharing

Does the idea of Google scanning each and every one of your photos to provide facial recognition make you a little nervous?

Yeah, me too.

Immich is a modern photo and video manager that’s perfect for privacy-conscious users.  It includes all of the Big Tech features like mobile sync, facial recognition, map views, and timeline browsing, but in this case you’re in charge of your data.  If you’d rather not be training Google’s models (or whatever it is they do with your data), Immich is a great solution for you.

There’s some nice multi-user features, such as anonymous uploads to collect photos from friends, and partner sharing to combine photos of multiple family members into one feed.  Learn more on the project’s home page, and if you like what you see, get the mobile app and the fire up your own instance on PikaPods!

Checkmate: Monitor Your Websites’ Uptime and Performance

There’s a couple different types of monitoring you can put in place for your LowEnd systems.  One is from outside your VPS – pinging it, checking if web pages work, etc.  For that, you might want to look at Uptime Kuma, which is available on PikaPods.

The other kind of monitoring is something that can look inside your system.  Typically this requires some kind of agent on your VPS, but it enables a lot more monitoring.  For example, you can get alerts if disk space is too low, if you start swapping, etc.  For that, take a look at Checkmate.

Checkmate is a free, open-source uptime monitoring tool perfect for developers and sysadmins running sites on small VPSes.  It can do everything Uptime Kuma can do, and a lot more.  If you just need simple “is my VPS up or down,” then I’d go with Kuma.  But if you want details and custom monitors for both infrastructure and applications, look at Checkmate.  Either way, PikaPods has you covered.

Open Notebook: AI-Powered Notes & Research (Self-Hosted and Private!)

Open Notebook is an open-source tool that helps users analyze, summarize, and organize notes, PDFs, videos, and web content using AI, without hosting that information on Big Tech. 

You can create your notes and files in one place, and chat with AI about them.  Yes, it includes that cool podcast generation feature that NotebookLLM has.  Open Notebook supports many different AI providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and understands popular formats like PDFs, PowerPoint, Youtube links, etc.

I personally haven’t played with this one yet, but I’m going to try it out because it sounds pretty cool.

What are your favorite PikaPod apps?  And which ones would like you to see them add in the future?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.