homelab
The Hardware Decision: Mini PC vs Raspberry Pi vs Used Enterprise You've got $200 and want to run self-hosted services at home—but the hardware landscape is fragmented. I'll give you the honest comparison: I've run production workloads on all three approaches, and each
coolify
Why Coolify Beats a Manual Docker Stack for Homelab Deployments You've got your homelab running, but deploying applications still requires SSH, manual docker-compose files, and remembering which container needs which environment variable. Coolify is a self-hosted PaaS that eliminates that friction—it's Heroku's deployment
minio
What You're Building You need S3-compatible object storage on your homelab without cloud vendor lock-in or monthly bills—MinIO is the answer. This post walks you through deploying MinIO 2024.12.13 in Docker, securing it with TLS, configuring bucket policies, and integrating it with other self-hosted services.
gitea
Why Run Gitea: The Self-Hosted Git Server Your Homelab Actually Needs You're managing multiple repositories across your homelab infrastructure, and GitHub's free tier isn't cutting it anymore—or you want your git server running on your own hardware without cloud vendor lock-in. Gitea is
traefik
The problem: managing SSL, routing, and middleware for your homelab services without manual configuration Running 5-10 services in Docker across your homelab means managing individual Nginx configs, manually renewing Let's Encrypt certificates, and manually updating DNS records. Traefik v3 eliminates this by reading Docker labels directly from your
home-assistant
Prerequisites You'll need a Proxmox host running version 8.1+ (tested on 8.2.2 LTS) with at least 8GB RAM available for the HAOS VM, SSD storage for acceptable performance, and ideally a USB device for Zigbee/Z-Wave integration. I'm running this on a 2-socket
paperless
The Problem: Your Scanner is Collecting Dust You've got a multifunction scanner gathering dust on your shelf, your filing cabinet is overflowing, and you're still searching through PDFs by filename because search doesn't work. Paperless-ngx solves this: it's a self-hosted document management
immich
Why Self-Host Your Photos? The Immich Case Google Photos sunsetting unlimited storage and charging $2/month for 100GB is a wake-up call for anyone with 50k+ family photos. Immich solves this: a self-hosted photo library with ML-powered face recognition, mobile auto-backup, and zero subscription fees. This post walks you through
proxmox
Why Proxmox Backup Server Matters for Your Homelab Losing a production VM to storage failure or misconfiguration happens fast—restoring it without proper backups happens even faster, and it hurts. Proxmox Backup Server (PBS) gives you enterprise-grade deduplication and incremental backups without the licensing cost, and it's designed
nginx
The Problem: Managing Multiple Services Behind One IP Your homelab runs a dozen services across different ports—Plex on 32400, Home Assistant on 8123, Vaultwarden on 80—and you're tired of remembering which port maps to what. You want clean URLs with SSL, granular access control, and the
pihole
Why Docker for Pi-hole? Pi-hole's traditional setup assumes a dedicated Raspberry Pi running its own OS. For homelabbers already running containerized infrastructure, this wastes hardware and complicates management. Docker lets you run Pi-hole alongside your other services on existing hardware—I run it on my T5810 workstation with
jellyfin
Jellyfin vs Plex in 2026: What's Actually Changed You're running a homelab with 50+ TB of media and need to decide between Jellyfin and Plex—but the landscape has shifted significantly since 2024. This post covers the real trade-offs in 2026 when choosing your self-hosted media