These 4 Raspberry Pi Projects May Save You Money In The Long Run

You’d be hard pressed to find a tiny rectangle more versatile than the humble Raspberry Pi single-board computer. Since its inception in Cambridge in 2012, the Raspberry Pi has served as a springboard to an endless rabbit hole of DIY and maker projects. And while the Pi may have lost a bit of its edge over the years, to the point that we’d actually recommend a cheap mini-PC for certain Raspberry Pi projects, that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t use one.

There’s long been a central theme connecting a number of Raspberry Pi projects, and that’s how to employ them in a way that can save you a little bit of cash. The scope of this guide will lay out four self-hosted projects to replace your cloud storage, music streaming, Plex streaming, and one to help track price changes –- all in the name of saving money over the long term.

It’s worth noting that you’re going to be ahead of the game if you already own a Raspberry Pi that you can use. Maybe you have an old one sitting around that you’re not currently using or you just don’t want a mini-PC. Maybe you just love Raspberry Pi boards -– all fair. If not, consider picking up a used model to save some cash; just about any current Raspberry Pi model will work for these projects. 

Plex has humble roots as a freeware port of XBMC (which would later go on to become Kodi). It quickly became the de facto self-hosted anti-Netflix: A way for users to break free of another monthly subscription and take control over their media library. You can say Plex has come full circle, as many of its users have begun looking for an alternative as the core Plex service has become unrecognizable. The slow intrusion of ads, pay walling once-free features, and rising subscription and license costs have alienated many of Plex’s power users. On the topic of costs, the platform is once again raising the price of its lifetime pass later this year –- an eye-watering $750 that is practically begging users to go elsewhere or submit to its monthly pricing.

Enter Jellyfin. This free and open source media platform is a fork of the Emby 3.5.2 codebase, and functions as a self-hosted and self-contained server. Jellyfin has a number of clients in addition to its official desktop version that you can run on a Raspberry Pi, enabling support for iOS, Android, Roku, webOS, Tizen, and others. Jellyfin also boasts a vibrant third-party development community, where you can find several supported plug-ins that add increased functionality. An example is FinAmp for music streaming on a Jellyfin server, meaning a you can use the platform as an alternative to Spotify or PlexAmp.

Between Jellyfin and its plug-ins, basic features that Plex locks behind a paywall –- like transcoding and remote access –- are covered. Jellyfin plus Tailscale is a popular combo for secure, remote access to a Jellyfin server, and another reason that Jellyfin is among a growing number of free apps that beat the expensive alternatives.

The rise of music streaming has given way to a number of ethical questions like what it really means to not own the media you’re listening to and how streaming impacts artists financially. None of these questions have an easy answer, and that says nothing of the dubious artist payment practices of companies like Spotify and others, or the deluge of AI-generated music that has infested streaming platforms. In the same way that Jellyfin serves as a money-saving alternative to Plex or services like Netflix, Navidrome can function as a self-hosted alternative to the big music streamers.

The open source music server is built on top of the Subsonic media streaming API, which means you can use any number of Subsonic compatible front end apps and players for a Navidrome server. Navidrome works out of the box behind a reverse proxy, which is recommended for accessing the server outside of your LAN, but using a gated VPN connection adds another layer of security –- again, Tailscale is a popular choice here, as is self-hosted WireGuard.

The catch here is that you need your own music collection, but that’s kind of the point. Whether it’s converting your existing CDs to FLAC or MP3 formats, or using a Spotify Premium alternative like Bandcamp or Qubuz to buy digital tracks, having your own music library on your Raspberry Pi means you’re not beholden to corporate whims or licensing agreements that could see your favorite music evaporate from a streaming service.

Using a Raspberry Pi to escape third-party, proprietary cloud ecosystems such as Google and Dropbox still remains only one of the most popular Pi projects. However, it’s also one of the most popular ways to save money with a Raspberry Pi. It’s a project that’s been done to death, so to speak, but for good reason –- it works. Aside from eliminating another subscription, you also gain control over your data and privacy, which is an important aspect of the data sovereignty discussion.

Categorically, NextCloud is the most popular choice for creating your own cloud storage. There are a number of ways you can configure NextCloud, but a hidden trick is to run DietPi, which is a lightweight Debian-based Linux distro for the Raspberry Pi. The best part about this is once you flash DietPi to your installation media, there are several apps that are already pre-configured for you, including NextCloud. DietPi can also install Syncthing for you, which is another popular and free tool for self-hosted cloud storage.

One of the best ways to save money is to spend less upfront by shopping smarter. There are a number of simple price checking tools you can use to keep an eye on things, or even Python scripts for the programmers among you. But ChangeDetection.io works particularly well on Raspberry Pi boards, and it can be used to track prices, re-stocks, and web page monitoring. Even better, it can be integrated into popular services like Discord and Slack via webhook to receive notifications, and it can also be paired with other projects on this list like Jellyfin and NextCloud.

ChangeDetection.io is a free open-source project that you can self-host on local hardware but also as a subscription service that will monitor URLs for you, though that runs counter to this guide. The easiest way to install the service is by setting up Docker, and then clone the github repository with something like Docker Compose. Beyond that, it’s then a matter of setting up filters, monitoring settings, and where notifications need to be sent.

Though self-hosting your own services takes some time and commitment, one of the best benefits is you are insulating yourself from subscription creep. This can become a serious problem; one CNET survey from 2025 found that the average adult spends as much as $1,080 per year on subscription services. And by self-hosting, you’re forced to be more judicious about what you actually need, as that same survey found that many adults are spending $200 or more on services they’re not using or forgot to cancel. Outside of saving money on recurring subscription fees, being able to track prices with a tool like ChangeDetectio.io goes a long way in making more discerning buying decisions. Those savings can definitely compound over time, depending on your shopping habits.  

We can do some quick napkin math based on some popular subscriptions. Netflix is still the most popular video streaming service, and it costs a minimum of $107.88/year for the cheapest, ad-supported plan as of this writing. Tack on a couple more video streaming services, as most households have more than one, and that cost more than triples right there. Spotify’s cheapest premium (Individual) plan currently costs roughly $156 a year, and a popular cloud storage service like Google Drive will cost you $20-$100 annually, depending on how much storage you need. In this very basic example, you’d be saving between $284 and $364 every year by replacing your subscription services with open-source ones running on a Raspberry Pi.

The potential savings here will really only go up, as streaming services continue to increase their subscription costs over time. After all, when was the last time you saw a streaming service get cheaper?