Homelab Beginner Guide 2026: How to Get Started Right
Want to start a homelab but don’t know where to begin? See which hardware is enough, how to install Proxmox and which services are worth setting up first.
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Pi-hole on Proxmox LXC: Block Ads on Your Whole Network
Pi-hole blocks ads and trackers for every device on your home network, including smart TVs and phones. Here’s how to set up Pi-hole 6 in a small Proxmox LXC with blocklists, upstream DNS and the common pitfalls.
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Self-Host Stirling-PDF: Your Own iLovePDF Alternative
Merge, redact, OCR or compress PDFs without your documents ending up on someone else’s website. Here’s how to set up Stirling-PDF on Proxmox or with Docker.
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What’s Up Docker vs Watchtower: Docker Update Notifications
Watchtower updates containers automatically, even when an update breaks something. With What’s Up Docker (WUD) you get a push notification through ntfy instead and decide yourself when to update. Here’s how to set up WUD with Docker Compose.
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Paperless-ngx AI: Auto-Tag Documents with Claude
Here’s how to set up the built-in AI in Paperless-ngx 3 with Claude so it only uses your existing tags. An old AI add-on had created 923 tags on my instance that I had to clean up first.
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CrowdSec with Caddy: Secure Your Proxy with nftables
Here’s how to protect your Caddy reverse proxy with CrowdSec and the nftables bouncer, without a custom Caddy build. A new subdomain of mine had its first scanners within minutes.
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Uptime Kuma + ntfy: Homelab Push Alerts Without the Cloud
Uptime Kuma watches your services and ntfy sends push notifications to your phone, all self-hosted with no cloud. Plus three pitfalls from my two-location setup that cost me the most time.
