The Best Free Home Lab Tools I Discovered in 2026
Every year, I come across dozens of new open source projects that I stumble on or ones may write me about or mention in a comment to try out. Most…
Author: Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee is the Senior Writer, Engineer and owner at Virtualizationhowto.com, and a 7-time VMware vExpert, with over two decades of experience in Information Technology. Having worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as in various industries, He has extensive experience in various IT segments and is a strong advocate for open source technologies. Brandon holds many industry certifications, loves the outdoors and spending time with family. Also, he goes through the effort of testing and troubleshooting issues, so you don't have to.
The Proxmox Warning Lights I Never Ignore
Just like the check engine light on your car, there are definitely warning lights that you need to pay close attention to in the home lab. If you have been…
The 8 Hypervisors I’d Actually Recommend in Late 2026
So I think, in my opinion we have an even more rounded out list for virtualization platforms heading into late 2026. The list below is definitely an opinionated list, but…
The Docker Networking Mistakes I Still See in Home Labs (And How I Avoid Them)
Docker is an amazing tool that can be used both in production and in our home labs. I am a huge proponent of containerizing what makes sense. In the day…
The 9 Checks I Make Before Trusting Any Docker Image
There are myriads of Docker containers spread across many docker registries on the Internet. Most of these are on popular registries like Docker Hub, but others are found on other…
The systemd Services and Timers I Use in My Immutable Linux Home Lab
For the past several months now, I have shifted my home lab to immutable Linux distros like Flatcar which has changed how I think about installing software and things like…
How I Organize My Entire Home Lab So I Can Actually Find Anything
I have been reflecting on how far things have come in my home lab and ironically, I feel like I am more organized now more than ever before, even though…
The Reverse Proxy Mistakes I Still See in Home Labs (And How I Avoid Them)
Reverse proxies are one of the most critical pieces of infrastructure once you stand up a home lab and start learning containers and hosting things in those containers. You quickly…
I Thought My DNS Was Fine Until I Started Monitoring This
I am all about monitoring things in my home lab and with DNS being so important, if there is one service to monitor, this is it. DNS is at the…
These Downloadable AI Skills Made My Home Lab Agents Much More Useful
I have spent a lot of time experimenting with AI agents in my home lab over the past year. I have connected them to services through MCP servers as you…
