Your SaaS Zoo Is Eating Your Time

Why your SaaS zoo keeps growing

Nobody sets out to build an unmanageable tool landscape. You don’t have a Post-it over your desk saying “Let’s make our workflow as confusing as possible.”

It happens in tiny, reasonable steps.

You need a quick way to share files, so you create a cloud folder.
A client insists on another provider, so you add that too.
Someone invites you to their project board, so you adopt it “just for this project”.
Later you add a note-taking tool, a scheduling app, a chat platform – always for good reasons, always “just for now”.

Individually, every SaaS tool looks harmless. Together, they become a system nobody really designed – least of all you.

After a while, everyday work looks like this:

• Important files are spread across several clouds.
• Offers and contracts live in long email threads.
• Details disappear in chat scrollback.
• To-dos are split between the project app, someone’s notebook and the vague promise of memory.

And somewhere in the background, there is that quiet GDPR itch. You work with real client material, internal documents, maybe personal information. You roughly know that some of it is stored “in the EU,” some “in the US,” and some “wherever this SaaS happens to host things”. You don’t have a clean map. You just have a feeling that you should have one.

That is usually the point where your setup stops being support and slowly becomes resistance.

From scattered SaaS tools to a small self-hosted stack

A self-hosted stack sounds big and technical, but in reality it can be very small and very focused – especially for solo professionals and small teams.

Think of it as a backbone, not a monster. In many cases, that backbone can be as simple as:

• Nextcloud as your central place for files, sharing and basic collaboration.
• n8n as the quiet automation layer that connects things and handles repeatable workflows.

With a setup like this, Nextcloud becomes the home of your projects. Not “one of five clouds,” but the place where every project starts and ends. Project folders, client folders, upload links, review links – all in one environment you control.

Instead of asking “Which cloud did we use for this client?”, you ask “Which project folder is it in?”
Instead of attaching giant files to mails, you use share links you can revoke or update.
Instead of hoping that random links don’t break, you work in a system that belongs to you.

On top of that, n8n acts as the nervous system of your small self-hosted stack. A client uploads raw footage? n8n creates the folder structure you need, logs the project in your overview and adds a task to your list. A new inquiry comes in through a form? n8n stores it in a structured way, sends you a clean summary, optionally invites the person to book a call.

You still make the decisions. You still talk to the people. But you stop working as your own overworked assistant for half the day.

A small real-world example: four people, five clouds

Imagine a four-person creative studio. They grew faster than their infrastructure. Over the years, they collected five different cloud providers, two chat tools and more “temporary” accounts than anyone remembered.

Before they moved to a self-hosted stack, everyday life looked like this:

• Finding the “final” version of a file was a group activity.
• Asking “Who has the latest version?” was part of their internal culture.
• Creating a new project meant manually setting up folders, inviting people into the right tools, assigning access rights in three different places and hoping nobody dragged files into the wrong space.

When they started working with more sensitive client material, the question “Where exactly is this stored?” stopped being theoretical and started feeling uncomfortable in meetings.

They decided to move to a small self-hosted stack for their team, built on Nextcloud and n8n. All projects now start in one place: a Nextcloud project template creates the correct folder structure and access. n8n logs the new project in their overview, creates tasks for kickoff, review and delivery, and sends the client one upload link and one review link.

Three months later, no miracle had happened – but something very concrete had changed. Internal conversations shifted from “Where is it?” to “Is this the right version?” The background stress around client data went down because they could finally point to one environment, one server, one responsible owner.

That is what a self-hosted stack is supposed to do. Not impress you with a dashboard, but quietly reduce noise.

What a self-hosted stack cannot do for you

Time for the unglamorous part.

If your processes are a complete mystery even to yourself, a self-hosted stack will not solve that. Chaos on someone else’s servers simply turns into chaos on your own.

If nobody in your team is willing to take responsibility for a server – either by learning the basics, or by working with someone who handles it for you – then your self-hosted stack will soon feel like a pet that constantly needs feeding and attention.

And if you secretly hope for a setup you can “install once and forget forever,” self-hosting is the wrong lane. Security updates, backups and the occasional adjustment are part of the deal.

Any article that pretends otherwise is not describing self-hosting. It is describing wishful thinking.

When a self-hosted stack is not a good idea

Let’s be very clear: there are situations where a self-hosted alternative to SaaS is simply not worth it.

If you work mostly on small, simple projects, hardly ever touch sensitive data and you are genuinely happy with one or two carefully chosen SaaS tools, then stay there. A self-hosted stack would just add complexity without real benefit.

If nobody in your world has time or interest to care about infrastructure – and you also don’t want to collaborate with someone who does – then renting well-maintained SaaS tools is a smart and responsible choice. You don’t have to self-host to be “serious”.

If your honest reaction to all this is “I barely manage my inbox as it is, please don’t hand me a server”, then your next step is probably to simplify your toolset, not to add one more layer.

Self-hosting is a great fit in some contexts and the wrong move in others. That distinction matters.

When a small self-hosted stack does start to pay off

The interesting moment comes when a few things line up.

• You work regularly with sensitive material: real client footage, interviews, internal documents, data that should not float across half the internet. You are no longer comfortable scattering that across random third-party platforms whose privacy policies you skimmed once.
• Your daily work follows repeating patterns: onboarding clients, exchanging files, sending previews, collecting approval, closing projects. You catch yourself doing the same sequence again and again, just with slightly different names and dates.
• More than one person touches the same data: a small team, freelancers, partner organizations. Every new person means another round of access puzzles and “Could you invite me again?” messages.
• Your SaaS costs have crept into the three- or even four-figure range per year. Not because anything is outrageous, but because ten euros here and twelve euros there just never got revisited.
• You want your infrastructure to reflect your values. You don’t want to treat data as exhaust. You want to be able to say where things live, who can see them and why.

If that sounds familiar, you are very close to the spot where a small self-hosted stack for small teams becomes less of a geek fantasy and more of a rational business decision.

What a “Privacy-first Stack Setup” looks like (from around €2,200)

A Privacy-first Stack Setup is not a plugin in your WordPress backend. It is a compact project with a clear start and a clear end result.

It usually begins with analysis, not with installation. We look at which SaaS tools you use today, what you use them for, where critical files and conversations really happen, and which processes repeat often enough to automate.

From there, we design your target self-hosted stack: what moves into Nextcloud, which workflows run through n8n, and which external tools remain on purpose because they genuinely fit. The goal is not ideological purity. The goal is a backbone that matches your work.

Then comes the setup and hardening phase: configuring the server, setting up Nextcloud and n8n, creating a folder structure that follows your real projects, and building a few core automations around your everyday flows. The focus is on privacy-first defaults and realistic GDPR awareness – not on pretending that technology makes laws disappear.

Finally, there is a proper handover: you learn how to work with your new self-hosted stack, you receive concise documentation of the most important flows, and, if needed, a short adjustment phase where we fine-tune details that only appear once you use the system with real clients.

For solo professionals and small teams, such an entry project typically starts at around €2,200. More complex stacks with more people and processes scale from there.

You are not buying “a server.” You are investing in an infrastructure you actually understand.

From SaaS zoo to a calm backbone

If you found yourself uncomfortably nodding along while reading, your SaaS zoo is probably already eating more of your time than you like to admit.

The answer is almost never “one more tool with a nicer interface.”
The answer is a base that fits your work, your values and your legal reality – whether that’s carefully selected SaaS or a small self-hosted stack.

For the teams who are at that tipping point, I offer the Privacy-first Stack Setup: a clear, bounded starter project that helps you move from scattered SaaS tools to a calm, maintainable self-hosted stack built on Nextcloud and n8n.

If you want to know whether you’re already there, send me a short description of your current tool landscape – or explore the Privacy-first Stack Setup page and see whether your situation sounds familiar.

And until then, one simple question:
Is your current stack supporting your work – or are you mainly feeding your zoo?