Should I self-host Home Assistant Cloud?

YESworth it

You're already self-hosting Home Assistant — Nabu Casa is a $6.50 relay for remote access and voice. A reverse proxy or Tailscale replaces the relay in an afternoon. Counterpoint worth stating: that subscription is also how HA's development gets funded.

The math (nothing hidden, including your time)

Home Assistant Cloud (Home Assistant Cloud)	$6.50/mo
VPS share + storage	−$0.00/mo
Your maintenance: 10 min/mo at $20/h	−$3.33/mo
Net saving	$3.17/mo
Setup: 15 min measured (one-time)	$5.00
Break-even	1.6 months
Markup Index (price ÷ real self-host cost)	2.0×

What's your hour worth? $20/h$0/h = "my homelab time is free and I love it" — a legitimate position

Price: source, checked 2026-08-06. Inputs are stored in git; every number above is derived, never hand-written.

What you lose

Alexa/Google voice skills without manual token surgery
Funding the project — consider a donation if you drop the sub

What you're paying Home Assistant Cloud for

remote access to Home Assistant
voice assistant integration
TLS without port-forwarding

Home Assistant running from the boot-verified compose file — Home Assistant, running from the compose file on this page — screenshot from our verified instance, not marketing material.

Ranked alternatives

1. Home Assistant

Open source home automation on hardware you own, where the automations, the history and every device credential stay put.

home-assistant/core · ★ 89,844 · last commit 0d ago · Apache-2.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on Raspberry Pi.

Verification

Protocol v1 · verified by zernonia on 2026-08-10 · setup measured at 15 min · AI assistant: claude-code (allowed & stated)

Full timed log

# Home Assistant Cloud — verdict log

- **Date:** 2026-08-10
- **Verdict:** YES — worth it
- **Protocol:** v1 (2GB reference env, Docker preinstalled, AI assistant: claude-code)

## Why no compose file

- This verdict is decided by economics/capability, not setup effort — the rubric doesn't require a timed install to conclude the subscription should stay (or that the replacement's cost lives elsewhere, e.g. GPUs, egress, or an installer script).

## The call

You're already self-hosting Home Assistant — Nabu Casa is a $6.50 relay for remote access and voice. A reverse proxy or Tailscale replaces the relay in an afternoon. Counterpoint worth stating: that subscription is also how HA's development gets funded.

Verdict history

2026-08-10: unscored → YES — Initial verdict: You're already self-hosting Home Assistant — Nabu Casa is a $6.50 relay for remote access and voice.