Guides for running your own services instead of renting them from hyperscalers. Covers Nextcloud for file sync, Jellyfin for media, Vaultwarden for passwords, Gitea for version control, and dozens of other open source platforms that replace the subscription stack most people default to. Every guide includes the Docker Compose file, the reverse proxy config, the backup approach, and the failure modes we have hit in production. Self-hosting is not about paranoia. It is about owning the infrastructure your life runs on, understanding how it works, and keeping your data under your own roof. If you want sovereignty over your digital life, this is the practical path.
How to Install Jellyfin Media Server with Docker (Own Your Media) In December 2019, Plex added a free ad-supported streaming service to its apps. The media server I installed to watch my own content now shows me someone else’s ad-supported films in the same interface. Then on 29 April 2025, Plex made remote streaming of
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I need to be honest with you before we start. Grafana and Prometheus will teach you more about your infrastructure than any other tool you deploy. They will also consume an alarming number of hours as you chase the perfect dashboard layout, tweak colour schemes, and add panels for metrics you will never actually look
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How to Install Tailscale on Linux (Zero-Config VPN for Your Homelab) I have spent more hours than I care to admit configuring WireGuard tunnels by hand, generating key pairs, managing peer configs across devices, and debugging firewall rules when something stops working after a kernel update. Tailscale does the same job in about two minutes:
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The docker-compose.yml used in this guide (copy-paste ready). Every Homelab Needs a Front Door If you are running more than one web-facing service in your homelab, you have probably hit the same wall everyone does. Nextcloud is on port 8080, Vaultwarden is on port 8081, Uptime Kuma is on port 3001, and you are typing
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Why WireGuard Changed Everything I ran OpenVPN for years. It worked, most of the time, but the configuration was a maze of certificates, TLS keys, and config files that took an afternoon to set up and broke in ways that were never obvious. When I switched to WireGuard, the entire server config was 15 lines.
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Why You Should Own Your Files I run Nextcloud in my homelab. It replaced Google Drive, Dropbox, and iCloud across every device in my household. The honest version of that story is that it took me two attempts to get it right, and there were weeks where I genuinely considered going back to Google. Nextcloud
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Vaultwarden with Docker Compose (Short Answer) Vaultwarden is a lightweight, self-hosted reimplementation of the Bitwarden server, written in Rust. Default port: the container listens on port 80 internally; map it to any host port you like, or publish nothing and let your reverse proxy reach it over a Docker network. There is no second port
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I monitor 30+ services across my homelab with Uptime Kuma. It has saved me from silent failures more times than I can count, and it takes about five minutes to deploy. Here is how to set it up properly. From the homelab: Uptime Kuma monitors every service I run — over 30 endpoints across multiple
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Not on Ubuntu 24.04? On Ubuntu 26.04 LTS or 22.04 LTS the steps below are the same. For Debian 13 or Debian 12, see our Install Docker on Debian guide. The docker-compose.yml used in this guide (copy-paste ready). Why Ubuntu 24.04 Is the Docker Host You Want I run Docker across six hosts in my
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Let me be honest upfront: running Kubernetes on a single Raspberry Pi is over-engineered. For running a few containers, Docker Compose is simpler, lighter, and more appropriate. If your goal is purely practical — get services running with minimum fuss — you don’t need Kubernetes. That’s not the point. The point is that Kubernetes is
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