Homelab & Infrastructure
Hardware, networking, security, and the economics of ownership. 15 posts.
The State of Self-Hosting in 2026
Where self-hosting stands in 2026: growth numbers, category winners, licence drama as a genre, and predictions grounded in the visible trends.
Homelab & InfrastructureDNS for Self-Hosters: Records, TTLs, and Split-Horizon
DNS for self-hosters done right: local zones on a real domain, split-horizon with your reverse proxy, sane TTLs, and the classic resolution bugs.
Homelab & InfrastructureIPv6 in the Homelab: Finally Worth It?
Whether IPv6 is worth enabling in your homelab: prefix delegation, firewall defaults, dual-stack gotchas, and who actually gains from it in 2026.
Homelab & InfrastructureOff-Lease Enterprise Hardware: A Buyer's Field Guide
A field guide to buying off-lease enterprise hardware: where it comes from, CPU generation sweet spots, and the loud power-hungry gear to avoid.
Homelab & InfrastructureSelf-Hosted vs SaaS: Honest Total-Cost-of-Ownership Math
Honest TCO math for self-hosted vs SaaS: pricing your hours, fixed vs marginal costs, a failure budget, and the cases where SaaS genuinely wins.
Homelab & InfrastructureCloud Repatriation: When Moving Back On-Prem Pays
When cloud repatriation pays: egress economics, a break-even worksheet, the 37signals numbers, and the hybrid endgame that usually wins anyway.
Homelab & InfrastructureOwn Your Data: The Export-Everything Habit
Why every SaaS account needs a scheduled export: formats that last decades, automation with rclone and cron, and how to test-restore your life.
Homelab & InfrastructureWho Pays for Open Source? Sustainability Behind Your Stack
Who funds the open source behind your homelab: five funding models, the unforgiving maintainer math, and where your money or time actually helps.
Homelab & InfrastructureAGPL, MIT, BSL: Licences Explained for Self-Hosters
What MIT, GPL, AGPL, BSL, and SSPL actually permit for self-hosters and startups, and what the recent relicensing waves predict about your stack.
Homelab & InfrastructureTLS Everywhere: Let's Encrypt Done Right
Let's Encrypt done right at home: DNS-01 wildcard certs for internal hosts, renewal monitoring that works, and the cert pinning myths to skip.
Homelab & InfrastructureFail2ban vs CrowdSec: Modern Brute-Force Defence
Fail2ban vs CrowdSec for homelab brute-force defence: local jails vs community blocklists, resource costs, and setup behind a reverse proxy.
Homelab & InfrastructureContainer Security: The 20% That Stops 80% of Attacks
Five compose-file changes — non-root, read-only filesystem, dropped capabilities, socket hygiene, network splits — stop most real container attacks.
Homelab & InfrastructureThreat Modelling for Normal People
How to threat model a home server without paranoia: the adversaries you actually face, the assets that matter, and six controls that cover it all.
Homelab & InfrastructureDe-Googling in 2026: A Practical Migration Map
A service-by-service map for leaving Google in 2026: self-hosted replacements, difficulty ratings, exit costs, and the right order to migrate in.
Homelab & InfrastructureWhat Your Homelab Really Costs in Electricity
What a homelab really costs in electricity — the watts-to-dollars formula, measured idle numbers per device, and the efficiency upgrades that pay back.