Your First Homelab: What You Actually Need in 2026

You don’t need rack-mounted gear. A mini PC under your TV works. Here’s what actually matters.

I run 15+ services on a box that fits in my hand. Photos, passwords, file sync, media, monitoring. It cost less than dinner for two. You can do the same.

Do I also have a Mac Mini that could handle all of this at 10x the price? Sure. But we’re being budget-friendly here, and hopefully helping someone get started.

Assumption: You have a keyboard, mouse, and monitor you can hook up for the initial setup. After that, everything is SSH and web UIs.

Three Ways In

Free: Use What You Have

Old laptop from 2018? That’s a homelab. Close the lid, plug in ethernet, SSH in. Done.

Minimum specs:

• 4GB RAM.
• 64-bit CPU from the last decade.
• Ethernet port (WiFi works, ethernet’s better).

That’s enough to run Docker. And Docker runs everything.

I started on a 2015 ThinkPad with a cracked screen. Nextcloud, Vaultwarden, Uptime Kuma — no issues. Laptops aren’t built for 24/7 use, but for learning? Spend €0 first. Figure out if you even like this.

Budget: €100–200

Used enterprise mini PCs. Corporate offices refresh these every 3 years and dump them on eBay. Your gain.

Get one of these:

• Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q / M920q — the go-to. Tiny, reliable, and great Linux support.
• HP EliteDesk 800 G4/G5 Mini — equally solid, sometimes cheaper.
• Dell OptiPlex Micro — fine. Slightly worse Linux support historically, but it works.

€100–150 gets you an i5-8500T, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Enough for 10+ containers.

You can upgrade the RAM and storage later if you outgrow it.

New Hardware: €300–500

Intel N100 mini PCs. The sweet spot right now.

Why:

• 4 cores. Handles Docker fine.
• 6W TDP. €2-3/month in electricity. (Unless you live in Ireland like me. It’s still a good option, but Godspeed with the bills.)
• Hardware AES for encrypted volumes.
• Up to 16-32GB RAM depending on the board.

Beelink, MinisForum, TRIGKEY — all make N100 boxes for €150–200. Add your own RAM and SSD.

Want a NAS instead? If you’re looking at something like a Synology, you probably already know more than this guide can offer. That’s a different path — a good one, but not where we’re starting.

What Specs Matter

Not the same priorities as a gaming PC.

RAM > CPU > Storage

RAM is king. Containers eat it up:

8GB = 6-8 services comfortably. 16GB = stop thinking about it. 32GB = overkill but cheap, so go for it.

CPU barely matters. Most self-hosted apps are I/O bound. Exception: media transcoding. Intel QuickSync handles that. Every Intel chip from the last 8 years has it.

Storage: SSD. Any SSD. The SSD vs HDD difference for Docker is massive. Media files can go on a USB drive later — doesn’t need speed.

Networking

Your ISP router is fine. Plug in an ethernet cable. Move on.

“What switch should I buy?” None. Unless you need VLANs, 10GbE, or PoE for cameras, skip it.

UniFi? A beautiful rabbit hole, but you shouldn’t worry about that when just starting.

One thing: set a static IP for your homelab box in your router’s DHCP settings. It keeps your bookmarks working.

Five Services to Start With

KISS. This order builds on itself.

1. Uptime Kuma

Simple, useful immediately, gives you something to look at. Point it at google.com and your router.

services:
  uptime-kuma:
    image: louislam/uptime-kuma:1
    volumes:
      - ./data:/app/data
    ports:
      - "3001:3001"
    restart: unless-stopped

One file. docker compose up -d. You’re self-hosting.

2. Vaultwarden

Replace your password manager. It’s a lightweight Bitwarden-compatible server. You use the official Bitwarden apps — just point them at your server. It’s the first service where self-hosting provides real value.

3. Traefik

Two services running? Now you want uptime.yourdomain.com instead of :3001. Traefik does that plus auto-SSL. Most complex thing on this list, but everything you deploy later benefits from it. Learn it early.

4. Immich

Replace Google Photos. It looks and feels like it, runs on your hardware, and your photos never leave your network. This is the “holy crap, self-hosting is cool” moment.

5. Jellyfin

Media server. It has clients for every platform, hardware transcoding, and no subscription. It makes your homelab feel like a product, not a project.

Proxmox vs. Bare-Metal Docker

Start with Docker on bare metal.

• It’s simpler. One OS, one set of updates, one SSH target.
• It’s less overhead. No hypervisor eating your RAM.
• It’s portable. Your docker-compose.yml works anywhere — local, VPS, or different hardware.

Proxmox is great. Use it later when you have 10+ services and want to experiment with VMs. Not before.

Power and Noise

Your homelab runs 24/7. This matters.

That old desktop at €15/month costs more than a Hetzner VPS. Use it if it’s free. Don’t buy one.

Modern mini PCs are silent at idle. Living room friendly. Old desktops with spinning drives? Not so much.

Get a UPS

A basic APC Back-UPS (€50-60). Not for uptime — for clean shutdowns. Power flickers, your Immich database or Nextcloud storage gets corrupted. Ask me how I know.

What NOT to Buy

The homelab community has a gear problem. Skip all of this until you’ve been running 6+ months:

• A rack. A shelf works.
• Rack-mount servers. Loud, power-hungry, and overkill.
• 10GbE networking. 1GbE handles everything. You only transfer a big media library once.
• ECC RAM. Nice to have, sure. But it’s not a requirement for a homelab that runs Docker containers. If your board supports it and the price is close, go for it. Otherwise, don’t sweat it.
• Enterprise SSDs. Consumer NVMe endurance is fine. You’re not running a data center.
• A second machine for “redundancy.” A service goes down for a few hours while you fix it? Nothing bad happens.
• UniFi everything. Great gear. Beautiful rabbit hole. But your router works fine for now.

Shopping List

Budget (~€150)

• Used Lenovo ThinkCentre M720q (i5, 8GB, 256GB) — ~€100 on eBay.
• 16GB DDR4 SO-DIMM — ~€25.
• Ethernet cable — ~€5.
• APC Back-UPS BE425M — ~€55.

Total: ~€185. Runs 10+ services.

New Build (~€350)

• Beelink Mini S12 Pro (N100, 16GB, 500GB) — ~€180.
• 1TB NVMe (Samsung 980 / WD SN770) — ~€60.
• APC Back-UPS — ~€55.
• Ethernet cable — ~€5.
• 4TB USB HDD for media — ~€80.

Total: ~€380. Runs everything. Silent. Sips power.

What’s Next

1. Pick your first five services.
2. Get a domain. Cloudflare Registrar, ~€9/year.
3. Set up backups early. Restic + Telnyx Cloud Storage is a solid, affordable combo.
4. Check out r/selfhosted and r/homelab for troubleshooting.

Don’t try to build the perfect setup on day one. My homelab has been rebuilt three times. Yours will evolve too.

The best homelab is the one that actually runs. Start small. Start now.