This is all you need to start a homelab, so what are you waiting for?
You’ve put off your homelab trip for too long and now it’s time to get your foot in the door. The good news is that it’s never been easier. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on professional-grade racks and equipment; you can start small for next to nothing and grow from there.
Start with an inexpensive single-board computer or mini PC
You might think that starting a home lab requires breaking the bank, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Spending a lot of money on an interest that you’re not even sure you can stick with is a foolish task. It’s best to start low, catch the bug, then make significant upgrades (or start again with fresh eyes).
Let’s start with the basics: what is a homelab? In its simplest form, a homelab is a computer laboratory installed in your home. You can use it to self-host services like cloud storage or a web server, stream media locally and remotely, store your most important files and backups, manage your smart home, manage your security cameras, and improve network and device security or privacy. You can use it to run experiments in secure and sandbox environments.
It’s no surprise that you can achieve much of this with a single computer, and it doesn’t even have to be particularly powerful. Single-board computers have long been considered the ideal starting point for hobbyists due to their relatively inexpensive price, low power consumption, small footprint, and robust software support.
The Raspberry Pi is an ever-popular example. Cheap, low-power variants like the Pi Zero 2W (running an OS like Diet Pi) and older Pi 3 and 4 devices still offer a lot of potential. The advent of inexpensive mini-PCs has given those starting a home lab an even better performance/dollar outlook.
New mini PCs are cheap, but used ones are even cheaper. These often feature fast NVMe storage, more expansion ports than a Raspberry Pi, faster wired network connections, and better thermal management. Even the early Apple Silicon M1 and M2 Mac mini models are now available around the $100 mark if you know where to look.
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- Brand
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Raspberry Pi
- Storage
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8 GB
- Processor
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Cortex A7
- Memory
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8 GB
- Operating system
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Raspbien
- Ports
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4 USB-A
It’s only recommended for tech-savvy users, but the Raspberry Pi 5 is a DIYer’s dream. Cheap, highly customizable, and with excellent built-in specs, it’s a solid foundation for your next mini PC.
Right away. I have a Mac mini M1 running my Home Assistant server and a handful of containerized services. I also have a Raspberry Pi 500+, essentially a Pi 5b in a keyboard case, for further experimentation. You can start with an old laptop or anything else capable of running a lightweight Linux distribution.
Remember that homelab machines will need to run 24/7, so choosing something a little energy efficient will be kinder to your electricity bill. Try to avoid thirsty tower PCs or invest in rack-mounted servers until you need that kind of power.
Install Docker and learn how to use it
There are many ways to manage a homelab, but one of the best places to start is Docker or a similar container manager. Docker is a tool that makes managing your homelab easier. Containers run services created from uploads called images.
The containers are designed to be lightweight and easy to deploy. They are actually miniaturized operating systems equipped with everything needed to run a specific application. They are not limited by many of the limitations of a virtual machine and use an easily accessible location on your computer to store their data.
Docker is a good place to start, as it makes container management relatively simple, consumes fewer system resources than virtualized environments, and even has a relatively user-friendly GUI application available in the form of Docker Desktop. This integrates seamlessly with Docker Hub, a repository of millions of images that you can pull, run, and use with just a few clicks.
Check out our guide to getting started with Docker for a detailed overview of what’s possible and where to start.
Spin a few containers and go from there
With Docker installed on your homelab at low cost (or free), it’s time to start reaping the benefits. One of the best projects to start with is Pi-hole, a DNS sinkhole. Pi-hole effectively removes content you don’t want to interact with using the web’s domain name service system.
Once Pi-hole is up and running, you can use your homelab’s IP address as a DNS server and block trackers or delete other content. This is a great way to get rid of invasive ads on smart TVs and other intrusions. From there, there are many other lightweight containerized applications you might want to try.
The beauty of this approach is that most projects will have container images available, many of which are official. You can move your Home Assistant smart home server to Docker, which can give you more control over backups. You can deploy your own self-hosted cloud storage with Nextcloud, which also includes a mid-range Google Docs replacement. You can add a NAS to stream TV and movies with Jellyfin, or use a Spotify replacement Navidrome for music.
Warning: the more you play, the more homelab will hook you. You’ll start to see the appeal of dashboards that allow you to view services or server performance or double up on services like Pi-hole for redundancy reasons. In no time, you’re adding switches, NAS drives, racks, uninterruptible power supplies, and laughing at the posts on r/homelab.
Creating your own homelab can free you from the constraints of cloud and subscription services. It can also spark a new obsession, a never-ending search for more things to self-host and the equipment needed to do it. Appreciate.
