Notes from building Freeshard: what we are making, why we made it that way, and what went wrong along the way.https://freeshard.net/en-gbhttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/putting-apps-to-sleep-and-waking-them-in-under-two-seconds/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/putting-apps-to-sleep-and-waking-them-in-under-two-seconds/Self-hosted apps eat RAM even when nobody is using them. Freezing them with the cgroup freezer and paging them out with memory.reclaim gives the memory back and still wakes them in under two seconds.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/unblocking-apps-by-fixing-a-performance-bottleneck/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/unblocking-apps-by-fixing-a-performance-bottleneck/Apps like Immich and KitchenOwl were slow or failed to load because every request pulled two database connections to check authorization; caching that data removed the bottleneck.Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/rebrand-and-public-source-code/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/rebrand-and-public-source-code/Portal has been rebranded to Freeshard, with a new logo, and the project's source code has moved from GitLab to a public GitHub repo under a fair-source license.Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/going-paperless-with-paperless-on-portal/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/going-paperless-with-paperless-on-portal/A walkthrough of the author's Paperless-on-Portal document-management setup: scanning, email-based ingestion, tagging and organizing, and searching documents from any device.Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/eating-your-own-dog-food/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/eating-your-own-dog-food/Portal's administrative backend functions moved from a CLI into a new self-hosted Portal app, showcasing how Portal's identity and authentication model eliminates the need for passwords entirely.Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/app-integration-overhaul/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/app-integration-overhaul/Prompted by adding Overleaf to the app store, a two-month overhaul of Portal's app format, app store backend, installation flow, and websocket support.Sat, 16 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/smart-home-and-iot/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/smart-home-and-iot/Portal now supports smart-home and IoT devices via MQTT: a Mosquitto broker app, a management UI for access rules, a new multi-entrypoint app.json format, and a step-by-step setup guide.Thu, 08 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/peer-2-peer-communication/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/peer-2-peer-communication/Portal ships peer-2-peer communication: Portals talk directly to each other over signed, end-to-end encrypted requests, with no middleman — plus a new public profile page.Tue, 01 Nov 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/backup-your-portal/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/backup-your-portal/Portal has always been an early-prototype where your data wasn't safe. Now you can download a full backup — database, uploaded files, and app state — whenever you want.Mon, 25 Jul 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/shared-directories/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/shared-directories/Portal apps used to store data in siloed per-app databases or directories. Shared directories let apps read and write a common filesystem area instead, the way apps do on any normal OS.Tue, 28 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/starting-and-stopping-apps/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/starting-and-stopping-apps/Portal used to run every installed app all the time, capped by RAM. Here's how we start apps on demand, with splash screens and a configurable idle lifecycle.Fri, 10 Jun 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/new-features-for-the-portal-app-store/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/new-features-for-the-portal-app-store/The first version of the Portal app store was a quick first shot. This update adds featured apps, dedicated app pages, hints, full app.json viewing, and easier install/uninstall.Wed, 30 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://freeshard.net/en/blog/getting-rid-of-registration-and-login-views/https://freeshard.net/en/blog/getting-rid-of-registration-and-login-views/Self-hosted apps often ship their own registration and login screens, which are confusing on a single-user Portal. Here's how we use proxy auth headers in app.json to skip them.Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 GMT