Dax Raad's Math on Self-Hosting: DeepSeek Costs an OpenCode User $1.14/Day, So a Dual DGX Breaks Even in 24 Years
Dax Raad (thdxr) / Hacker Newsvia @thdxr·low signal
The SST/OpenCode maintainer posted per-user economics showing a Go-focused OpenCode user running DeepSeek costs $1.14/day in inference, against which a dual DGX purchase takes 24 years to break even. It drew 64 points and 59 comments on HN debating the framing — the calculation only holds at single-user scale and ignores latency, privacy, and burst-capacity motives — but it is a concrete, first-party number from someone with real usage telemetry, which is rare in the self-host-versus-API argument. Single-source and back-of-envelope; useful as an anchor, not a verdict.