It's nice there's a front end for all these tools but I kinda don't get why is everything "hosted". This could have just been a desktop app. I guess it can be useful when you want to convert something on your phone but to me it just seems like unnecessary server maintenance burden.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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It’s nice because I don’t have to install it. Now I can use it when I work, on my computer at home or when my dad calls me.
But there is also merit to using a desktop application.
Fair enough. I guess I imagined someone hosting all the selfhosted web apps that get posted to this forum, when most people likely just host only the few they need on the go, so it isn't really that burdensome.
Edit: Forgot to add: I always though that it could be useful to just set up Apache Guacamole, so that instead of the hosted services, my family members could just use remote desktop apps but I never got around to it.
My small repurposed NAS could not handle hosting everything posted here, but it would be really nice if I had the time to both set it up AND use them. I'm suprised it can even handle almost 10 apps (but I am the only user).
I also had a dream of setting up Guacamole and run Heroes of Might and Magic III turn based. But I never got it working (didn't use docker back then) so I gave up on it.
Something like this is useful as well if you have a large item to convert since you can offload that processing to your server/NAS and not have it bog down your PC/phone/etc
I think that a good chunk of the selfhosted community is "sole IT guy at a tiny company". This is great for that, since having to update desktop software in twenty places sucks.
Different use cases.
It's not like your uploading and downloading gigabytes to it to use ffmpeg. For that you use something local. This is for converting smaller files conveniently. For example from a laptop and you don't want to use a public converter that might keep the content.
If you regularly convert certain file types on a computer, dedicated programs tend to be better than these combo ones anyway.
Why would anyone setup and maintain a server to do infrequent conversions of small files?
In addition to the other post...
You already have a setup and throwing one more docker on isn't a big deal. especially if you have watchtower already setup as well... then it even updates itself.
I use tools like this all the time... PDF for example stirling-pdf makes doing something things a LOT easier than firing up a "proper" pdf editor. This tool would likely be the same concept for other workflows.
I love Stirling PDF. I use it probably once a quarter on average. But it's always there, ready to be useful.
As do I.. had a coworker message me about using adobe to merge/split pdfs... rather than walking them through the adobe workflow, just linked them right to the url... It's so easy to use that I didn't have to say anything more. they got it in seconds that would have taken me minutes of back and forth to explain to them.
It's great. Simple tools for simple purpose.
Why not both?
I use this on desktop https://github.com/Tichau/FileConverter but then on mobile how you would convert files, especially niche technical ones? I used to rely on cloudconvert.com but now I can install this on my server
An app?
You need an $100/year developer account to publish apps on the apple store. Without that, your app cannot be used by owners of an apple product.
Self hosting has no such problems
Screw apple products. Release on F-Droid.
Yeah please
This is a great addition to my home-lab, no more "free online convert" tools needed.
Same, I've been looking for something like that for quite some time
If I had a nickel for every time someone has whined that you need to self host this, I’d have 2 nickels. Which isn’t a lot but still noteworthy because this is literally a self-host community.
Wow, it even includes plenty of 3d file types which are quite hard to actually find converters for.
Nice but I believe it lacks the ability to chose the codec, bitrate, etc for videos (and bitrate for audio?)
This is awesome, thank you for sharing.
We need a running service when a simple command will do?
How big an attack surface do you need?