July 2026 Homelab Update (+ some personal updates)

It's been a while since my last post on the progress of my homelab, and even though I've been too lazy to setup the analytics feature on my blog I'm pretty sure I'm only writing these for myself - it is still a good exercise that forces me to document what I've got running.

Still Running

The following services are ones that I was running as of my last post in September of last year, and I am still using actively to this day.

AirSonic Advanced

Music Streaming (linuxserver.io)

I use AirSonic every single day and it has 100% replaced all of the other ways I listened to music before. I have briefly tried other apps like Navidrome that have "better" UIs but something about Airsonic is just appealing to me. I didn't get into creating my homelab for it to be easy and I think something about the Google/Material UI of Navidrome (and other more modern options) just annoys me on principle. Seeing the raw HTML form elements and other old-school vibes in Airsonic is just more in line with what I want from my homelab.

At the moment I have just over 310 GB of music in my library, which is slightly over 13,000 songs by 328 artists. It has become a routine that I look forward to each month making myself new playlists manually, though I do always have my ListenBrainz account synced to it where I can look for inspiration on suggested playlists, artists, and songs.

On that note, the only flaw in this so far is that something in my homelab (my suspicion is it is AirSonic itself) causes some listens to be recorded multiple times into my ListenBrainz history. I don't care too much but it is something I hope to fix eventually.

Jellyfin

Movie and TV streaming (website)

Jellyfin is the service most used by my family members, but I also use it often. I have several services running alongside it that help me make full use of it, though for the *arrs I only use them for a nice library management UI - not their main purpose of obtaining torrents:

• Radarr: Helps to sort and tag movies in my library
• Sonarr: Easily tracks what episodes for TV shows are missing from my library and enables quick sorting and categorizing for my shows
• ChannelTube: Checks YouTube channels for new videos to download (Github)
• MeTube: Individual YouTube (and other online video site) video downloader

And Many Others

My media server apps are definitely the ones that get the most usage and make my homelab worth it on their own, but I have many other apps that I use on less regular basis. Some, like Uptime Kuma or Rust Desk, are still super important and I would find it much harder to live without them at this point but I just don't use them as often by their nature, and there isn't much to say about them. I recommend any of the below services if you think it would be useful for you:

• DokuWiki: A minimal wiki for storing information (website)
• Immich: Cloud-based photo library / archive (Website)
• KitchenOwl: Manages recipes, grocery lists, and meal planning (github)
• Rust Desk: Remote desktop server and client (documentation)
• Uptime Kuma: Server and self-hosted app monitoring service (Github)
• HomeBox: Inventory manager (Website)
• LGSM: Linux Game Server Manager (Website)
• PaperlessNGX: A cloud PDF / document storage system that enables tag-based sorting of important documents (Documentation)

Retired Services

• Glance: Technically still running because it takes up almost zero space and processing power, but I don't use it actively.
• Formbricks: It was very heavy in terms of the processing power it took up, and I didn't really need it
• Duplicati: This service is very useful except I have not invested enough time into figuring out how to set it up properly and since it would be something I was to have 100% faith in I can't rely on it for my backups yet, so I am still doing my backups manually. I know it isn't a complicated software but the various ways I've configured my VPN and the overly protective security settings I have on all my various servers over-complicate it for myself, so this has been delayed to sometime in the future.

New Stuff

The majority of the past 6 - 8 months of my homelab attention has been spent building my own custom applications and services. None of them are in a place where I want to share any code publicly, I don't want anyone using them when I'm not fully sure I can vouch for them, but I do make use of several simple programs on a daily basis.

The idea for most of the things I am working on is to build them into a cohesive system that can work together and function as a kind of one-stop database for all the basics you would want from your computer. It would have nowhere near the functionality of something like your Google Suite or Apple iCloud but I like to think of it as a diet version of whatever assortment of online apps one might use to manage the essentials in life.

The first one I started on and has been in a usable state for months is a medication and daily health tracker. I'm working to expand it to a full personal health manager database that would serve as a great tool for keeping track of the kinds of things you might want to self-manage or be able to pull up and talk about with a doctor at appointments.

Some of the other "features" or areas I am working on are task lists, calendar, contacts, and shopping lists. All of these ideas arose from needs in my own life, or in family members' lives, and it is totally possible I never make a publicly usable version. It would be far easier to just brute force code a set of programs that serve exactly my needs and doesn't have to consider others, but I do enjoy the challenge of making it more widely usable because that also means it would be extendable and easy to modify should my own needs / expectations of the programs evolve.

Personal Updates

About two months ago I moved from a casual contract into a full-time one in my job that I've been at for 2 years, so I've had less time for working on my homelab and associated projects.

I also started really trying to double down on a few different writing projects that I've had brewing in the back of my mind because the word count in my Notes app was growing so high it was nearing a point where I've probably written half a novel already, so I wanted to stop messing around and take it a bit more seriously.

And I have a long-term software / development project that I might start working on a bit more publicly if things keep going well with it.

All this to say I have spread myself across a lot of different projects and I'm not worrying too much about how long it takes to have anything to show for it - including allowing myself plenty of days or weekends where I don't accomplish anything productive at all. It isn't worth stressing out over something I started out playing around with because it was fun.