I ditched Google’s ecosystem with these 5 self-hosted apps—and I’m never going back

Android is often seen as a Google product, and in many ways it is. Google and its services sit at the center of the experience, but underneath all of that, Android is still built on an open-source foundation, which means the core system doesn’t actually require Google to function the way most people assume it does.

What this really means is that while removing Google from your phone (and life) entirely is difficult, there are many ways to reduce your reliance on it. Fortunately, replacing most of these cloud-based services is relatively straightforward when you have a home server running self-hosted alternatives, which is exactly what I ended up doing—and the following are the apps that helped me achieve it.

Home Assistant helped me escape the frustration of Google Home

Take back control of your smart home and automations

I don’t have a super…