# Newbie question about pod hosting

**URL:** <https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199>\
**Category:** Self Host a Solid Pod\
**Created:** [December 31, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199 "2025-12-31T22:33:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nrstirzaker](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/forum.solidproject.org/nrstirzaker/32/4876_2.png) [@nrstirzaker](https://forum.solidproject.org/u/nrstirzaker)\
**Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 10:33pm UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199/1 "2025-12-31T22:33:15Z")

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hi all,

there is mention on the site about bittorrent. Does solid work in a similar way in that if I host my own pod will i also end up hosting the decentralisation data of other people in the community?

Thanks

Nigel

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**Author:** ![gaz009](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a5b964/32.png) [@gaz009](https://forum.solidproject.org/u/gaz009)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2026, 4:16am UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199/2 "2026-01-03T04:16:08Z")

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Hi Nigel,

I will assume you are going to use the Community Solid Server. That would depend on the server configuration. You can always run your own Solid server which just has your data on it and keep it public, but only your data is on it. You can also configure the sign-on and storage mechanisms to allow others to host their pod data on your server. Only the agents which have configured access control to resources on your server would be able to access and/or create pod resources.

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**Author:** ![dgdyhcjvh6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dgdyhcjvh6](https://forum.solidproject.org/u/dgdyhcjvh6)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199/3 "2026-01-22T15:57:43Z")

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Hello,

If I host my own Pod at home (on a Raspberry Pi or an old PC), what happens to my data visibility when my internet goes out? Since it isn’t ‘distributed’ like BitTorrent, does my digital identity effectively go offline?

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**Author:** ![gaz009](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a5b964/32.png) [@gaz009](https://forum.solidproject.org/u/gaz009)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199/4 "2026-01-22T16:09:48Z")

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It depends on whether your WebID is hosted on that PC or not. One thing to understand is that your WebId and WebID document may be hosted at a separate location from where one or more of your Pods is located. In this case, if you hosted your WebId document on that machine and the internet went out, then that WebID would be unavailable. An agent can have multiple WebIDs, so you may use another one. However, any Pod data hosted at that location would be unavailable to be accessed unless you had multiple WebIDs stored at various locations which all had access to those resources. Sorry if that seems overly complicated or needs more clarification but I wanted to explain multiple scenarios.

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**Author:** ![jeffz](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex017/user_avatar/forum.solidproject.org/jeffz/32/600_2.png) [@jeffz](https://forum.solidproject.org/u/jeffz)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2026, 1:39am UTC](https://forum.solidproject.org/t/newbie-question-about-pod-hosting/10199/5 "2026-01-23T01:39:02Z")

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Just to add to @gaz009’s excellent reply. Any data that you host on your machine will, during an internet outage, be unavailable to any remote players regardless of where your WebID is hosted. There are, however a number of “local first” solutions which would mirror your data remotely. In that case you’d need a second WebID hosted somewhere other than on your machine.