After facing a massive DDoS attack on my self-hosted server, I learned the hard way how important firewalls are—especially cloud firewalls that can stop malicious traffic before it even reaches your server. In this blog, I share my journey from near-server meltdown to bulletproofing my setup, exploring the difference between traditional and cloud firewalls, and how a few simple steps can protect your server from hackers and their bots. If you're thinking about self-hosting, you won't want to miss this!