Build your dream home lab
Hardware reviews, setup guides, and practical tips for building and running a home lab. From your first server to a full rack.
Pterodactyl: Self-Host Any Game Server With a Web Panel
Set up Pterodactyl Panel to manage Minecraft, Valheim, CS2, and more game servers from a clean web interface on your homelab.
-
LibreNMS: Network Monitoring and Autodiscovery for Your Homelab
Set up LibreNMS in your homelab for automatic device discovery, SNMP monitoring, bandwidth graphing, and alerting across your entire network.
-
n8n: Self-Hosted Workflow Automation for Your Homelab
Set up n8n in your homelab to automate tasks across services — backups, notifications, API integrations, and more — with a visual workflow builder.
-
Cilium: eBPF-Based Networking for Your Homelab Kubernetes Cluster
Learn how to replace kube-proxy with Cilium for high-performance eBPF networking, network policies, and observability in your homelab Kubernetes cluster.
-
MinIO: S3-Compatible Object Storage for Your Homelab
Set up MinIO in your homelab to get self-hosted S3-compatible object storage for backups, media, and app data — with the same API as AWS S3.
-
Headscale: Self-Host Your Own Tailscale Control Server
Run Headscale on your homelab to get Tailscale's mesh VPN without depending on Tailscale's cloud. Full setup guide including clients and subnets.
-
Stirling PDF: Self-Hosted PDF Tools for Your Homelab
Deploy Stirling PDF in your homelab for private, self-hosted PDF manipulation — merge, split, convert, OCR, and more without uploading files to third-party services.
-
UPS for the Homelab: Power Protection for Servers and NAS
Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) protect homelab equipment from power outages, surges, and dirty power. This guide covers UPS types (standby vs line-interactive vs online), sizing, and integrating with NUT for automated graceful shutdowns.
-
Samba and NFS File Sharing in the Homelab
Samba provides Windows-compatible SMB file shares; NFS is the Linux-native network filesystem. This guide covers setting up both on Ubuntu/Debian, configuring permissions, and choosing between them for homelab use.
-
Running Local AI in Your Homelab: GPU Setup for Private LLMs
A practical guide to running large language models locally in your homelab using Ollama, llama.cpp, or LM Studio — with GPU acceleration via NVIDIA or AMD cards.
-
Prometheus and Grafana: Metrics Monitoring for the Homelab
Prometheus scrapes metrics from exporters and stores them in a time-series database. Grafana visualizes them with dashboards. This guide covers setting up the Prometheus + Grafana stack for homelab monitoring with Node Exporter, cAdvisor, and SNMP Exporter.
-
ZFS Basics for Homelab Storage
ZFS is a combined filesystem and volume manager with built-in RAID, checksumming, snapshots, and deduplication. This guide covers ZFS pools, VDEV types, datasets, snapshots, and practical ZFS setup on Linux for homelab NAS use.
-
Running Windows as a VM on Proxmox VE
How to install and configure a Windows 10 or Windows 11 VM on Proxmox VE. Covers VirtIO drivers, CPU/memory settings, USB passthrough, RDP access, and GPU passthrough for a performant Windows guest.
-
Snapcast: Synchronized Multi-Room Audio for Your Homelab
Snapcast streams audio to multiple endpoints in sync — Raspberry Pis, speakers, phones — with millisecond-level precision. Covers server setup, client configuration, Home Assistant integration, and audio source connection.
-
VictoriaMetrics: A Faster Prometheus for Your Homelab
VictoriaMetrics is a high-performance, cost-efficient time series database that's compatible with Prometheus. Covers single-node setup, Prometheus replacement, and Grafana integration.
-
Cloudflare Zero Trust for Homelab Remote Access
Use Cloudflare Zero Trust to expose homelab services securely without opening firewall ports — tunnels, access policies, and identity-based authentication.
-
Restic: Modern Backup for the Homelab
Restic is a fast, encrypted, deduplicated backup tool. This guide covers restic's core concepts, backing up to local storage and Backblaze B2, automating with systemd, and verifying your backups actually work.
-
PSU Redundancy for Your Homelab: Why It Matters and How to Set It Up
Learn when and how to add redundant power supplies to your homelab servers, what to look for in a redundant PSU, and how it differs from UPS protection.
-
Cockpit: Browser-Based Linux Server Management for Your Homelab
Cockpit is a web console built into most Linux distros that gives you a clean UI for managing servers without memorizing commands. Monitor resources, manage containers, and configure storage from any browser.
-
Homelab Power Efficiency: Reducing Electricity Costs
Homelab servers can cost $100-600+ per year in electricity. This guide covers measuring actual power draw, selecting efficient hardware, implementing sleep/wake schedules, and calculating the real cost of running 24/7.
-
Linux Software RAID with mdadm: Setup and Management
mdadm provides software RAID on Linux without hardware RAID controllers. This guide covers RAID levels, creating arrays, monitoring health, handling drive failures, and recovering from faults — all without ZFS.