New to home labs and self-hosting? Start here.

This is your roadmap. Follow these guides in order and you will go from complete beginner to running your own self-hosted setup at home.

Grab our free Home Lab Starter Checklist before you dive in.

Step 1 — Understand the basics

• What Is a Home Lab? A Beginner’s Guide to Self-Hosting
• What Is Docker and Why Every Home Lab Beginner Needs It
• What Is a NAS and Do You Actually Need One at Home?

Step 2 — Choose your hardware

• Best Mini PCs for a Home Lab in 2026
• Proxmox vs VMware: Which Hypervisor Should You Run?
• Best NAS Devices for Home Use in 2026

Step 3 — Start building

• How to Run Pi-hole on Your Home Network to Block Ads
• How to Set Up Jellyfin: Your Own Free Personal Streaming Service
• Best Self-Hosted Password Managers You Can Run at Home

More guides are added regularly. Bookmark this page and check back often.