“Growing your own” is a common expression used by people who grow their own food and plants in a garden or allotment. This site encourages people to “grow their own” online services by setting up their own social networks, websites, personal clouds and messaging services.

Like gardening, some people do this just for fun, some want to build or support a community, while others have practical or philosophical reasons. Whatever your reason, it’s much quicker, easier and cheaper than you think. You don’t need to be rich or technical any more, it is now totally possible for ordinary people to make their own online services.

The easiest method by far for growing your own is to use a managed hosting company: this means you own and run the service, while the hosting company does all technical stuff like software installation and server maintenance behind the scenes.

Some people do prefer to do the technical stuff themselves, but this site concentrates on managed hosting, as it is the easiest option for most people.

So, why is it good to “grow your own”? Here’s a list of reasons…