Fenrus vs Homer
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted dashboards & startpages options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Fenrus | Homer |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 63 · Good | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Dashboards & Startpages | Dashboards & Startpages |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | JavaScript | Vue |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 790 | ★ 11,617 |
| First released | 2022 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Heimdall | Heimdall |
What are Fenrus and Homer?
Fenrus
Fenrus is a personal home page and dashboard for organizing applications with live widgets and per-user dashboards. It targets households wanting individual customized start pages. It is deployed via Docker.
- Per-user dashboards
- Smart app widgets
- Built-in search engines
- Guest and personal modes
Homer
Homer is a very simple static dashboard for your services, configured with a single YAML file and served as static assets. It targets users wanting the lightest possible start page. It is deployed via Docker or any static host.
- Single YAML configuration
- Pure static, no backend
- Themes and search
- Tiny resource use
Fenrus vs Homer: key differences
Fenrus is written in JavaScript, while Homer is built with Vue. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Fenrus versus Apache-2.0 for Homer. Homer is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Fenrus. Homer is the more established project (first released 2019), while Fenrus arrived in 2022. Homer has the considerably larger community, at 11,617 GitHub stars versus 790.
Why pick each one
Choose Fenrus if…
- Multi-user dashboards
- Live app data
- Simple to run
Watch out for
- Smaller community
- Fewer integrations
Choose Homer if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to host
- Fast
Watch out for
- No dynamic widgets
- Manual config edits
Frequently asked questions
Is Fenrus or Homer better?
Neither is universally better. Homer has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Fenrus and Homer free and open-source?
Yes. Fenrus is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Homer under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fenrus and Homer with Docker?
Fenrus: yes. Homer: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Fenrus or Homer?
Homer has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Fenrus. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.