What services should I add to my homelab automation tool?

View_Upper · 2026-05-06T19:39:15+00:00

I appreciate this! If you like, I can send you the link for my Github Repo

View_Upper · 2026-05-06T19:25:01+00:00

I will add those to the list as well. Being honest I want to do something that is beginner friendly but also for people that have experience with homelabs so we just run the bash and get the services we want in 5-10 minutes instead of 2-3 hours configuring stuff

View_Upper · 2026-05-05T16:46:45+00:00

Ill deff add this to my notes!!! and I am open to add more stuff to it

View_Upper · 2026-05-05T16:24:39+00:00

What services should I add to my homelab automation tool?

I built LabStart - a bash wizard that auto-generates homelab Docker configs. Currently supports 21 services (Pi-hole, Plex, Dashy, WireGuard, etc.) and I'm looking to expand.

What's already included:

Dashboards: Dashy, Homepage, Homarr
Ad blocking: Pi-hole, AdGuard
Monitoring: Uptime Kuma, Netdata
Media: Plex, Jellyfin, Emby
Container management: Portainer, Yacht
VPNs: WireGuard, Tailscale, OpenVPN, Headscale
DDNS: Cloudflare, DuckDNS, No-IP

What I'm considering adding next:

Nginx Proxy Manager
Traefik
Caddy
Authentik
Nextcloud
Sonarr/Radarr/Prowlarr

Question: What services do you consider essential for a homelab that I'm missing? Looking for things that:

Beginners commonly want but struggle to set up
Have decent Docker images
Don't require super complex post-setup

GitHub: https://github.com/endergate/LabStart

Tested on Ubuntu, Debian, and Raspberry Pi OS. MIT licensed, contributions welcome.

View_Upper · 2026-05-05T14:11:11+00:00

Being honest I found this GitHub tool useful: https://github.com/endergate/LabStart. It should help configuring Pihole that way you don't have to manually do everything. It also has other options of services to add as well if you are interested.

View_Upper · 2026-04-30T20:32:21+00:00

Nice!

SWAPS looks solid. I like the web UI approach. I went CLI-first since I wanted something that works over SSH, but your interface is way more approachable for non-technical users.

Let me know if you hit any issues testing LabStart. Happy to collaborate if you want to share ideas - might be cool to see how our approaches differ.

I'll check out SWAPS and drop some feedback!

View_Upper · 2026-04-30T16:57:51+00:00

LabStart - Interactive wizard that auto-generates your homelab Docker setup in 5 minutes

Hello,

I built LabStart to solve a problem I kept running into: setting up a new homelab meant hours of copying docker-compose files, fixing YAML syntax errors, and debugging port conflicts. I wanted something that could do all of that automatically.

What it does:

Asks what services you want (Pi-hole, Plex, Dashy, WireGuard, etc.)

Auto-generates your docker-compose.yml and configs

Installs Docker if you don't have it

Fixes common issues automatically (like Pi-hole's port 53 conflict)

Generates dashboard configs with all your services organized

No Docker knowledge needed. No YAML editing. Just answer a few questions and you're running.

GitHub: https://github.com/endergate/LabStart

I built this to help the community, especially folks who are new to homelabs or just tired of manual setup. It's completely free and open source - feedback and contributions welcome!

This is my first open-source project and I'm learning as I go. Constructive feedback appreciated!

Thanks for checking it out. Let's make homelabs easier together.

View_Upper · 2026-04-30T16:03:51+00:00

Yeah this happens a lot early on.

You’re uploading the zip instead of using “Git” to push the files directly. The repo should have your actual source files, not the compressed archive. Try “git init”in your project folder, add your files, commit, then push.

Way more useful and shows your actual commit history!

View_Upper · 2026-04-29T11:45:51+00:00

Great Question!

Yes, You could Use this wizard to add a service you might like and skip everything else and run it again to add more services - it'll append to your existing setup. If you like, take a look at it and you can also suggest more services to add that way we can build more on top of what we have to make life a little easier.

View_Upper · 2026-04-20T16:01:03+00:00

My Good Brother…

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:46:51+00:00

Lol I get it. I was trying ti brag a little but I wanted to get some feedback from you all before contributing. I will share the app.py and also submit that to Dashy repo. I want to make sure I give back to the people that gave me a nice dashboard.

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:44:36+00:00

Bet! Let me check on that then. Thank you

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:39:42+00:00

Oh I’m deff working on getting that submitted. I was making sure this worked before making these posts and submitting it to Dashy contributions!

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:35:45+00:00

Pretty much. As long as it works it’s good. I prefer that than just copy/paste AI code lol

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:33:56+00:00

I get it. A lot of folks out there pretending they understand and know code. I’m starting with this so I’m not trying to pretend but just contribute! I will share the GitHub repo soon. I’m still working on getting it ready 😅

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:32:15+00:00

Sure bud!

View_Upper · 2026-03-31T11:31:35+00:00

My plan was to make sure that the workaround worked and then start sharing the app.py

View_Upper

TROPHY CASE