Should I self-host Microsoft 365 Personal?

NOT REALLYkeep paying

$1.99/mo including 100GB and real Office compatibility. OnlyOffice self-hosts well, but nothing self-hosted opens a tracked-changes .docx from a lawyer with guaranteed fidelity. Keep paying.

The math (nothing hidden, including your time)

Microsoft 365 Personal (Basic)	$1.99/mo
VPS share + storage	−$1.00/mo
Your maintenance: 30 min/mo at $20/h	−$10.00/mo
Net saving	$-9.01/mo
Setup: 15 min measured (one-time)	$5.00
Break-even	never
Markup Index (price ÷ real self-host cost)	0.2×

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

Price: source, checked 2026-08-07. Inputs are stored in git; every number above is derived, never hand-written.

What you lose

Office format fidelity when documents leave your house
1TB OneDrive at the family tier is absurdly cheap storage

What you're paying Microsoft 365 Personal for

Word/Excel/PowerPoint
OneDrive storage
Outlook mail

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

Ranked alternatives

1. ONLYOFFICE Docs

The Word, Excel and PowerPoint half of an office subscription, as a server your own file app hands documents to.

ONLYOFFICE/DocumentServer · ★ 6,800 · last commit 20d ago · AGPL-3.0

Hardware

Runs comfortably on a real VPS (2 GB+).

Verification

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

Full timed log

# Microsoft 365 Personal — verdict log

- **Date:** 2026-08-10
- **Verdict:** NOT REALLY — keep paying
- **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

$1.99/mo including 100GB and real Office compatibility. OnlyOffice self-hosts well, but nothing self-hosted opens a tracked-changes .docx from a lawyer with guaranteed fidelity. Keep paying.

Verdict history

2026-08-10: unscored → NOT_REALLY — Initial verdict: $1.99/mo including 100GB and real Office compatibility.