When I say that my home lab has changed over the years, that is definitely an understatement. It has gone through several iterations of build outs. Most of the upgrades…

The post The 5 Home Lab Upgrades that Changed Everything for Me appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

I have been playing around with and using OPNsense for a while now and it is a rock solid open-srouce firewall that can do just about anything you want to…

The post The OPNsense Plugin You Must Install in 2025: Zenarmor Guide & Review appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

DNS is absolutely one of the core critical services in your home lab environment. It isn’t flashy or the “next new thing” but if DNS isn’t working, nothing else will…

The post Why I run multiple DNS servers in my home lab (and you should too) appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Since I have moved my home lab now to mostly mini PCs, I definitely keep my eyes open for great mini PC configurations and offerings that make sense for home…

The post MINIX Elite EU715-AI Review The Mini PC Designed for AI and Home Labs appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Reverse proxies I think are one of the most important services that you can spin up in your home lab. In fact, if you caught my recent blog post and…

The post Why Pangolin is the one reverse proxy I’d pick if I was starting my home lab today appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Recently, I covered the first services that you should spin up in a home lab, including core services that are needed to make sure things work as expected with apps…

The post The First Hardware I Always Buy for Any Home Lab appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

I have been testing a lot of reverse proxies lately, comparing features, and thinking about which ones are best for which use cases. For a long while, I have thought…

The post Nginx Proxy Manager vs NPMplus Which One is Better for Your Home Lab? appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Docker Desktop is a great tool to run containers locally. It also provides a great interface to work with your containers and many features. While we may choose to run…

The post Best Docker containers for Docker Desktop in 2025 appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

One of the first things that you will want to do when it comes to building out your home lab or home network in general to go beyond the basics…

The post 5 Things You Should Know About OPNsense Before You Install It appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft is getting things ready to release the latest version of Windows 11, Windows 11 version 25H2. In this one, Microsoft isn’t just dropping a…

The post Windows 11 25H2 ISOs and Enablement Package Download Released Ahead of Launch appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

I have been all-in on mini PCs now for the past couple of years and have since gotten rid of my enterprise 2U servers and that create a lot of…

The post Why Your Mini PC’s NVMe Drive Isn’t as Fast as You Think appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Sometimes it is hard to know where to start when building a home lab. It can be overwhelming with all the choices and services that you know you may need…

The post The First Services I Always Spin Up in Any Home Lab appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

I have to say that I am a sucker for tools and utilities, especially when these are good and add value to a platform. Not long ago, I did a…

The post Proxmox Enhanced Configuration Utility (PECU): The Ultimate Proxmox VE GPU Toolkit for 2025 appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

There are a lot of great ways to run Kubernetes in your home lab. I have covered many of these from running k3s to running a Minikube cluster on Ubuntu…

The post Why Talos Omni Kubernetes Has Changed My Home Lab appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

If you have been keeping up with my home lab projects lately, you know I have been playing around with a lot of different reverse proxies and learning as much…

The post Caddy Reverse Proxy in 2025: The Simplest Docker Setup for Your Home Lab appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

If you are starting to run containers in 2025 in the home lab or production environments, the operating system you choose is the foundation that starts it all. Since containers…

The post Best 5 Docker Container Operating Systems in 2025 (Home Lab & Enterprise Picks) appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

In 2025, home labs are more powerful and smaller than ever, thanks to mini PCs. Mini PCs with AMD Ryzen or Intel Core Ultra processors now have up to 32…

The post Do You Really Need a Full-Sized Rack for Your Home Lab in 2025? appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

Have you ever been there before? You accidentally plug in the wrong cable in your home lab or enterprise environment and you realize what you have done when pings stop,…

The post Spanning Tree Sucks, Long Live Spanning Tree! appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

One of the things that gets “hard” when you start caring about the security of your Docker containers is managing your secrets. It is a tricky bit that you need…

The post Stop Using .env Files: Docker Secrets Made Easy with Doppler appeared first on Virtualization Howto.

I have totally shifted my home lab over to using mini PCs in the past couple of years. Full-blown enterprise servers, while cool, are simply not needed to self-host or…

The post NPUs in Mini PCs are Worthless for a Home Lab, Here’s Why appeared first on Virtualization Howto.