My Personal Homelab Journey

From a single Raspberry Pi to a full-fledged homelab - documenting my adventures in self-hosting, automation, and infrastructure.

Proxmox VE

Infrastructure•Beginner-friendly

Enterprise-grade hypervisor for running VMs and containers with built-in clustering

Why I use it:

  • Free with excellent web UI and enterprise features
  • Supports both VMs and LXC containers seamlessly
  • Built-in backup, clustering, and high availability
virtualizationinfrastructurehomelab
View on GitHub

Cloudflare Tunnels

Infrastructure•Intermediate

Zero-trust network access solution that secures homelab services without port forwarding

Why I use it:

  • Much more secure than traditional port forwarding
  • Includes Cloudflare's DDoS protection and caching
  • No need to configure firewall rules
networkingsecurityremote-accesszero-trust

Coolify

DevOps•Beginner-friendly

Self-hosted PaaS alternative to Heroku/Vercel with git-based deployments

Why I use it:

  • Dramatically simplifies deployment process
  • Automatic builds from GitHub repositories
  • Handles SSL certificates automatically
  • Supports multiple programming languages and frameworks
deploymentdevopspaasautomation
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n8nJourney Start

Automation•Beginner-friendly

Powerful workflow automation platform that started my self-hosting journey

My Journey:

watch this space :D

Why I use it:

  • Perfect entry point into self-hosting
  • Visual workflow builder makes automation accessible
  • Connects to hundreds of different services
  • Great for learning API integrations
  • Excellent documentation and community
automationworkflowsapiintegrationbeginner
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Uptime Kuma

Monitoring•Beginner-friendly

Beautiful and feature-rich monitoring solution for tracking service availability

Why I use it:

  • Incredibly simple to set up
  • Clean, at-a-glance dashboard
  • Multiple notification channels
  • Supports various monitoring protocols
monitoringuptimenotificationsalerting
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Plausible Analytics

Analytics•Intermediate

A lightweight, open-source, and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics

Why I use it:

  • Privacy-focused (no personal data collection)
  • Lightweight and fast
  • GDPR compliant out of the box
  • Clean, intuitive interface
analyticsprivacymonitoringweb
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OpenWebUI

AI•Intermediate

User-friendly and feature-rich web interface for local Large Language Models

Why I use it:

  • Best interface for local LLMs
  • Supports multiple AI models
  • RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) capabilities
  • ChatGPT-like user experience
  • Complete privacy (runs locally)
aillmmachine-learningprivacy
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Docmost

Documentation•Beginner-friendly

An open-source, self-hosted alternative to Confluence for team documentation and knowledge sharing

Why I use it:

  • Clean, modern interface
  • Real-time collaboration
  • Markdown support
  • Organized document structure
  • Great for technical documentation
documentationwikicollaborationmarkdown
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Supabase

Backend•Intermediate

Open-source Firebase alternative with PostgreSQL database, authentication, instant APIs, and more

Why I use it:

  • All the power of Firebase with self-hosting flexibility
  • Built on rock-solid PostgreSQL
  • Instant REST and GraphQL APIs
  • Built-in authentication and authorization
  • Real-time subscriptions
databasebackendapiauthentication
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