Blog
Dev tutorials, homelab guides, and tool walkthroughs.
Own Every Track: Self-Hosted Music with Navidrome, Soulseek & Slskd
Build a complete self-hosted music discovery and streaming pipeline. Download with Soulseek/slskd, manage with Lidarr, stream with Navidrome — all on your own hardware.
Self-Hosted This Week: AI Agents, Self-Improving Servers, and the State of Homelab 2026
A weekly roundup of the most interesting self-hosted tools and stories from the homelab world, featuring Talome, Glance, Drydock, and more.
11 Best n8n Alternatives for Self-Hosted Workflow Automation in 2026
n8n is great, but it's not for everyone. Here are 11 open-source and self-hosted alternatives that give you more control, better pricing, and stronger privacy for your homelab automation stack.
Self-Hosted Audiobookshelf: The Complete 2026 Guide to Owning Your Audiobooks
A comprehensive guide to setting up Audiobookshelf — the open-source audiobook and podcast server that replaces Audible. Docker Compose, Proxmox LXC, mobile apps, reverse proxy, and VPN setup.
Own Your Music: The Complete Self-Hosted Streaming Setup for 2026
Ditch Spotify and Apple Music for good. Build your own music streaming server with Plex Amp, Navidrome, or Jellyfin — and keep your library forever.
WireGuard + Pi-hole: The Complete Privacy Stack for Your Homelab
Set up a self-hosted WireGuard VPN with network-wide ad blocking via Pi-hole. One Docker Compose file, ten minutes, and your entire network gets privacy and security.
Self-Hosted This Week: AI Agents, Memory Databases, and the Self-Hosted Netflix — April 13–20, 2026
A memory database that forgets on purpose, a self-hosted Netflix streaming at 60 Mbps, AI agent security frameworks, a new note-taking paradigm, and Docker Headscale make this a week of genuine innovation in the self-hosted world.
Self-Hosted Password Management with Vaultwarden
A complete guide to running Vaultwarden — the lightweight Bitwarden alternative — in your homelab. Family passwords, secure sharing, and zero subscription fees.
Beszel: The Lightweight Monitoring Stack Your Homelab Actually Needs
Why I migrated from Prometheus + Grafana to Beszel for homelab monitoring. A simpler, faster, and more resource-efficient approach to keeping tabs on your servers.
Running Local AI in Home Assistant: What Happens When You Let It Go Autonomously
I connected a local LLM to my Home Assistant and gave it free rein. Here's what happened next — and why self-hosted AI agents are the future of smart home automation.
Self-Hosted This Week: Forks, Backups, and 23-Year-Old Bugs — April 6–13, 2026
Immich plots encrypted backups, the open-source office suite world descends into fork wars, Tailscale gets more generous, Claude Code finds a vintage Linux kernel bug, and a hardened *arr stack shows us how Docker Compose should actually look.
Local LLMs for Homelab: Which Model Runs Best on Your Hardware
Stop guessing. Match the right local LLM to your actual homelab hardware — from Intel N100 mini PCs to RTX GPU servers. Real benchmarks, use-case picks, and quant explained.
Wake On LAN: The Homelab Power Button You Didn't Know You Needed
Set up Wake On LAN for your Proxmox server, NAS, or workstation. Complete guide to BIOS config, magic packets, network setup, and Home Assistant integration.
TurboQuant: What Google's New Compression Means for Local AI
Google's TurboQuant promises near-lossless KV cache compression at 3 bits. Here's what it actually does, why it matters for local LLMs, and when you'll be able to use it.
Sonarr Security Hardening: How to Block Malicious Downloads at the Source
Stop .exe, .rar, and junk files from ever reaching your *arr stack. A practical guide to Sonarr release profiles, indexer restrictions, and torrent client blocks.
Give Home Assistant a Brain: Running Local AI Agents With Ollama
Connect local LLMs to Home Assistant for private, intelligent smart home control. Full setup for Ollama conversation agents, voice commands, and AI-powered automations.
Route qBittorrent Through a VPN With Gluetun (Kill Switch Included)
Self-host qBittorrent inside a Docker VPN tunnel using Gluetun. Complete setup with docker-compose, kill switch configuration, port forwarding, and leak verification.
What Is Real-Debrid? A Developer-Friendly Guide to Premium Streaming
Real-Debrid explained for homelab enthusiasts: how cached torrents work, why it's faster than traditional torrenting, and how to integrate it with Stremio, Kodi, and your self-hosted stack.
Self-Hosted This Week: Update Immediately — March 24–30, 2026
Home Assistant gets audited backup encryption, Langflow is being actively exploited, Booklore forks multiply, Valkey dethroned Redis at AWS, and OpenAI bought your Python toolchain.
Run TeslaMate on Proxmox LXC: The Complete Self-Hosted Tesla Dashboard
Step-by-step guide to running TeslaMate in a Proxmox LXC container with Docker Compose, PostgreSQL 17, and Grafana dashboards for tracking your Tesla's battery, trips, charging, and efficiency.
Run Home Assistant in a Proxmox LXC Container
A step-by-step guide to running Home Assistant Container in a Proxmox LXC — lighter than a full VM, easier to manage, and just as capable.
The $0 OpenClaw Setup That Nobody Talks About
Most OpenClaw users spend $50-200/month on API bills. Here's how to run a fully functional AI agent for free using local models, free cloud tiers, and a hybrid approach that costs under $3/month.
Is OpenClaw for Me? The Honest Guide Nobody Wrote Yet
Five real personas, actual cost breakdowns, honest downsides, and a decision framework for figuring out whether OpenClaw belongs in your life — whether you're brand new or been running it since the Moltbot days.
Run Ollama on Proxmox LXC (Full Setup Guide)
Step-by-step guide to running Ollama inside a Proxmox LXC container — GPU passthrough, persistent models, and integrating with Home Assistant and Open WebUI.
What You Can Build for Free with Cloudflare Workers
Cloudflare Workers' free tier is surprisingly powerful. Here's what you can actually ship without spending a dollar.
Build a Serverless Plex Invite System with Cloudflare Workers
Stop sharing root Plex access. Build a Telegram-powered invite flow that gives friends exactly the libraries they need — for free, no server required.
Why ChatGPT's Military Pivot Should Make You Rethink Cloud AI Dependencies
A 295% spike in ChatGPT uninstalls reveals a critical infrastructure risk: over-dependence on cloud AI providers. Here's how to build resilient, self-hosted alternatives.