Flame 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 | Flame | Homer |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | ≈5-minute setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 93 · Excellent |
| Category | Dashboards & Startpages | Dashboards & Startpages |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Vue |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 6,551 | ★ 11,617 |
| First released | 2021 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Heimdall | Heimdall |
What are Flame and Homer?
Flame
Flame is a minimalist, self-hosted start page for organizing applications and bookmarks with a clean interface. It targets users who want a fast, simple home page. It is deployed via Docker.
- Clean minimalist interface
- App and bookmark management
- Docker label integration
- Built-in weather widget
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
Flame vs Homer: key differences
Flame is written in TypeScript, while Homer is built with Vue. Licensing differs — MIT for Flame versus Apache-2.0 for Homer. Homer is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Flame. Homer is the more established project (first released 2019), while Flame arrived in 2021.
Why pick each one
Choose Flame if…
- Simple and fast
- Lightweight
- Easy to set up
Watch out for
- Few advanced features
- Limited active development
Choose Homer if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to host
- Fast
Watch out for
- No dynamic widgets
- Manual config edits
Frequently asked questions
Is Flame 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 Flame and Homer free and open-source?
Yes. Flame is licensed under MIT and Homer under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Flame and Homer with Docker?
Flame: yes. Homer: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Flame or Homer?
Homer has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Flame. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.