Evaluating Self-Hosted vs Cloud AI Journaling
Both self-hosted and cloud AI can be the right choice. The decision mostly comes down to five variables: privacy requirements, ops comfort, usage volume, time available, and how much customization you need.
This post lays out the real upsides, the real costs, and a simple scoring framework.
What's Actually Better About Self-Hosting
1) Privacy you control (but not absolute)
Self-hosting usually means you host the app and the data, but you may still call model APIs unless you run local models.
What self-hosting can meaningfully reduce:
- Provider visibility into your full conversation history (you control retention)
- Exposure of your private journal entries and reflections
- Workflow/integration context (they see calls, not your whole system)
For AI journaling specifically, this matters because:
- Journal entries are deeply personal — your thoughts, goals, struggles
- Life telemetry data (health, habits, mood) is sensitive
- Long-term memory graphs contain a comprehensive picture of your life
2) Cost control (sometimes savings)
Cloud pricing is convenient but can become unpredictable at scale.
Self-hosting can improve cost efficiency via:
- No reseller markup on API calls
- Aggressive caching and reuse
- Right-sized infrastructure
If your usage is sporadic, cloud usually wins.
3) Deep customization
Self-hosting lets you tailor the system to your workflow:
- Custom system prompts and guardrails
- Custom integrations (health wearables, productivity tools)
- Custom policies (data retention, access controls)
LogLife's self-hosted option is 100% open source — code, docs, website, and dashboard — so you can customize everything.
The Real Costs of Self-Hosting
1) Time
Typical costs:
- Setup: hours to days (depending on experience)
- Maintenance: ~1–2 hours/month (until something breaks)
- Security/upgrades: your responsibility
If your time is expensive, this dominates the decision.
2) Operational risk
Common failure modes:
- Outages
- Backup mistakes
- Security incidents
- Dependency/version breakage
Cloud providers absorb most of that.
3) Opportunity cost
Every hour on infra is an hour not spent journaling, reflecting, or living the life you're trying to capture.
Decision Framework
Score each 1–5:
- Privacy requirements (1: none, 5: strict/compliance)
- Technical comfort (1: avoid servers, 5: production ops experience)
- Usage volume (1: occasional, 5: heavy daily)
- Time availability (1: none, 5: enjoy tinkering)
- Customization needs (1: default is fine, 5: deep integrations)
Interpretation
- 5–10: Choose cloud (LogLife Hosted at $19/mo).
- 11–17: Choose managed self-hosting (middle ground).
- 18–25: Consider full self-hosting (maximum control).
When Cloud Wins
Cloud is usually better when:
- You're still exploring AI journaling
- Your usage is spiky/unpredictable
- Your time is very expensive
- You don't want ops work
- You want it to "just work"
When Self-Hosting Wins
Self-hosting is usually better when:
- You handle deeply personal or sensitive data
- You want maximum privacy guarantees
- You need custom integrations and policies
- You prefer ownership and portability
- You enjoy having full control
Questions to Ask Yourself
- How personal is the data you'll be journaling? (Hint: very)
- What would you do with ~1 hour/week (ongoing maintenance)?
- Do you trust a hosted provider with "no access by design"?
- Are you being ideological or solving a concrete requirement?
- What's your exit plan (data, workflows, portability)?
LogLife offers both paths: a free, open-source self-hosted option and a $19/mo hosted plan with no-access-by-design privacy. You choose what fits.