hello world.
that’s the first line every programmer writes when they learn a new language. it’s the proof of life. the system is running. something is listening.
this is mine.
i run this entire company on software i control.
no shopify. no mailchimp. no substack. no squarespace. no google workspace. no slack. no notion. no dropbox. no zoom.
every tool that powers diaita is self-hosted on a linux server i manage myself. the email list, the file storage, the bookings, the signatures, the analytics, the password manager, the bookkeeping, the community. all of it running on open source software. all of it mine.
that’s not a flex. that’s a philosophy.
dependency is dependency.
i teach sovereignty over food. what you put in your body, where it comes from, whether you understand it or whether you just trust that the package says it’s fine.
the same question applies to your tools. do you own your data or does mailchimp? do you own your audience or does substack? do you own your files or does google?
most people never ask. they just sign up.
i asked. and then i built something different.
here’s what actually runs diaita:
wordpress on a server i control. not wordpress.com. my wordpress. my database. my files.
coolify for managing services. open source. self-hosted.
listmonk for email marketing. open source. my subscriber data lives on my server, not someone else’s.
nextcloud for file storage and calendar. open source. my obsidian vault syncs there. my legal documents live there.
mailcow for email. jordan@diaitalife.com runs on a mail server i built and maintain.
cal.com for bookings. open source. synced to my own calendar.
docuseal for contracts and signatures. open source.
vaultwarden for passwords. open source.
firefly III for bookkeeping. open source.
umami for analytics. open source. no google analytics tracking your visitors and selling that data.
total monthly cost less than a netflix subscription.
the creative stack is the same story.
i ran a digital marketing agency. web design, social media, the whole thing. wordpress with free themes that hit a ceiling fast. wix. webflow. squarespace. all of them rented. all of them limited. all of them designed to keep you paying and keep you dependent.
and then adobe. the creative cloud trap. a subscription that owns your tools, your files, your workflow. cancel and lose access to everything you built inside it.
i cancelled.
GIMP for photo editing. inkscape for vector and design. krita for illustration. darktable for RAW photography. kdenlive for video editing. ardour and audacity for audio. blender for 3D.
every single one free. every single one open source. every single one i actually own.
and i run all of it on endeavouros. arch btw.
i am a self-taught designer who learned the layer underneath.
agency work taught me the ceiling of every platform i touched. the fees, the limitations, the terms of service that could change overnight. i knew the whole game.
so i learned linux. docker. servers. the infrastructure nobody rents you because they’d rather you didn’t know it existed.
when you build on shopify, shopify can change the rules tomorrow. when you build on substack, substack owns the relationship with your readers. when you build on instagram, the algorithm decides who sees your work.
i decided that was the same trap as the food system. someone else controls the inputs. someone else profits from your dependency. someone else can take it away.
now i own the stack.
this is what the floor office actually looks like.
a linux terminal. open source tools. a server humming somewhere in a data center. and one person who understands every layer of it.
that’s the whole office.
hello world.