At first, you have to decide what do you need. You can selfhost almost everything, but in my opinion there is no need to do so.

Second thing is hardware to host it. I saw a few comments recommending NAS. It is of course good thing, but my suggestion is just building your own NAS. You need only decent computer to do it.

The easiest way is just installing TrueNAS on it - with that you can setup file sharing and your apps via docker.

But what apps would you need/want? I can recommend a few from my stack:

• vaultwarden - for storing passwords, 2FA codes
• immich - for storing photos, videos, autoupload from phone
• adguard - for getting rid of ads, tracking They are really easy to deploy.

As an alternative to file shares via SMB, nextcloud is really good option. It’s google drive on steroids. Also includes photo gallery with great app on android/ios with autoupload option.