Selfhosted

What is your setup? I have TrueNAS and there I use the apps that are easy to install (and the catalog is not small) and maintain. Basically from time to time I just come and update (one button click). I have networking separate and I had issues with Tailscale for some time, but there I had only 4 services in total, all docker containers and all except the Tailscale straight forward and easy to update. Now I even moved those. One as a custom app to TrueNAS and the rest to proxmox LXC - and that solved my tailscale issue as well. And I am having a good time. But my rule of thumb - before I install anything I ask myself if I REALLY need this, because otherwise I would end up with like a jillion services that are cool, but not really that useful or practical.

I think what I would recommend to you, find platform like TrueNAS, where lots of things is prepared for you and don't bother too much with the custom stuff if you don't enjoy. Also I can recommend having a test rig or VM so that you can always try first, if its easy to install and stable to use. There were occasions when I was trying stuff and it was just bothersome, I had to hack stuff and I was glad in the end I didn't "pollute" my main server with it.

It's a mess. I'm even moving to a different field in it due to this.

You're not alone.

The industry itself has become pointlessly layered like some origami hell. As a former OS security guy I can say it's not in a good state with all the supply-chain risks.

At the same time, many 'help' articles are karma-farming 'splogs' of low quality and/or just slop that they're not really useful. When something's missing, it feels to our imposter syndrome like it's a skills issue.

Simplify your life. Ditch and avoid anything with containers or bizarre architectures that feels too ontricate. Decide what you need and run those on really reliable options. Auto patching is your friend (but choose a distro and package format where it's atomic and rolls back easily).

You don't need to come home only to work. This is supposed to be FUN for some of us. Don't chase the Joneses, but just do what you want.

Once you've simplified, get in the habit of going outside. You'll feel a lot better about it.

I manage all my services with systems. Simple services like kanidm, that are just a single native executable run baremetal with a different user. More complex Setups like immich or anything that requires a pzthon venv runs from a docker compose file that gets managed by systemd. Each service has its own user and it's own directory.

Sounds like you haven't taken the time to properly design your environment.

Lots of home gamers just throw stuff together and just "hack things till they work".

You need to step back and organize your shit. Develop a pattern, automate things, use source control, etc. Don't just file follow the weirdly -opinionated setup instructions. Make it fit your standard.

I deliberately have not used docker at home to avoid complications. Almost every program is in a debian/apt repo, and I only install frontends that run on LAMP. I think I only have 2 or 3 apps that require manual maintenance (apart from running "apt upgrade"). NextCloud is 90% of the butthurt.

I'm starting to turn off services on IPv4 to reduce the network maintenance overhead.

If a project doesn’t make it dead simple to manage via docker compose and environment variables, just don’t use it.

I run close to 100 services all using docker compose and it’s an incredibly simple, repeatable, self documenting process. Spinning up some new things is effortless and takes minutes to have it set up, accessible from the internet, and connected to my SSO.

Sometimes you see a program and it starts with “Clone this repo” and it has a docker compose file, six env files, some extra fig files, and consists of a front end container, back end container. Database container, message queueing container, etc… just close that web page and don’t bother with that project lol.

That being said, I think there’s a bigger issue at play here. If you “work in IT” and are burnt out from “15 containers and a lack of a gui” I’m afraid to say you’re in the wrong field of work and you’re trying to jam a square peg in a round hole

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

[Thread #40 for this comm, first seen 29th Jan 2026, 05:20] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

honestly, i 100% do not miss GUIs that hopefully do what you want them to do or have options grayed out or don’t include all the available options etc etc

i do get burnout, and i suffer many of the same symptoms. but i have a solution that works for me: NixOS

ok it does sound like i gave you more homework, but hear me out:

• with NixOS and flakes you have a commit history for your lab services, all centralized in one place.
• this can include as much documentation as you want: inline comments, commit messages, living documents in your repository, whatever
• even services that only provide a Docker based solution can be encapsulated and run by Nix, including using an alternate runtime like podman or containerd
• (this one will hammer me with downvotes but i genuinely do think that:) you can use an LLM agent like GitHub Copilot to get you started, learn the Nix language and ecosystem, and create Nix modules for things that need to be wrapped. i’ve been a software engineer for 15 years; i’ve got nothing to prove when it comes to making a working system. what i want is a working system.

Not trying to start any measuring contest, but what I've learned is that there are always people out there that does things 100x more than I do. So yes, 1500 Docker composes are a thing, and I've witnessed some composes with over 10k lines.

I'm sick of everything moving to a docker image myself. I understand on a standard setup the isolation is nice, but I use Proxmox and would love to be able to actually use its isolation capabilities. The environment is already suited for the program. Just give me a standard installer for the love of tech.

Use portainer for managing docker containers. I prefer a GUI as well and portainer makes the whole process much more comfortable for me.

I just have yunohost do like 90% of the work nowadays. My day job is docker/cli so the last thing i want to do is more of it.

I wouldn't say im stick of it, but it can be a lot of work. It can be frustrating at times, but also rewarding. Sometimes I have to stop working on it for a while when I get stuck.

In any case, I like it a lot better than being Google's bitch.

Just 15 containers? lol

do you get lab burnout

Not really. I have everything set the way I want it and it's stable. On occasion, I'll see a container that catches my fancy, so I'll spin it up on a test server, dick around with it, and monitor it before I ever decide to put it on my production server. On occasion I'll have to fix, or adjust something. Most of the time I'm just enjoying it. I wouldn't say I was running anything super complex tho.

As far as time, I've got you beat there most likely. Used to be lickity-split, but then you get old, things slow down. LOL Also, there is only one user...me. I realize you have family, but my hard and fast rule is: Multiple users cause issues, so I don't share. I'd say, go spend your time with the family. That's the most important.

I'm with you on the incomplete guides. There always seem to be that one 'secret' ingredient' that just didn't get documented. And to the devs of the opensource software, me love you long time, but please include a screenshot.

Proxmox?

And yes. Its like a full time job to homelab. Or a part time job. Its just hard, and sometimes things just don't work.

I guess one answer is to pick your battles. You can't win them all. But things are objectively better than they were in the past.

I do it in sprints. I'll set up a service, test it, get it working, then share it with the family.

I hear you on the instructions. A lot of these are pet projects that just happen to work well enough to share, so a bit of work is needed to implement them. If you document for others, you find that you can't ever put every step in there because you can't control all the variables.

Yeah that's part of having a hobby. If you do it for work too I can understand getting sick of it. But, no one is making you do it. If you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

I definitely feel the lab burnout, but I feel like Docker is kind of the solution for me... I know how docker works, its pretty much set and forget, and ideally its totally reproducible. Docker Compose files are pretty much self-documenting.

Random GUI apps end up being waaaay harder to maintain because I have to remember "how do I get to the settings? How did I have this configured? What port was this even on? How do I back up these settings?" Rather than a couple text config files in a git repo. It's also much easier to revert to a working version if I try to update a docker container and fail or get tired of trying to fix it.

I'm currently running three hosts with a collection of around 40 containers.

one is the house host, one is the devops host, and one is the AI host.

I maintain images on the devops host and deploy them regularly. when one goes down or a container goes down, I am notified through mqtt on my phone. all hosts, services, ports, certs, etc are monitored.

no problems here. git gud I suppose?

It can absolutely be overwhelming, and very easy to forget specifics over a long time. It's partly why I don't really go for CLI apps, and ~all of my apps are just Ansible manifests. Which apps are causing the biggest problems for your family?

What exactly is breaking each of these times? Guides that cover 95% sound pretty solid to me. It's hard to write a guide covering 100% of scenarios. Admittedly I also worked in the field, but the field is extremely wide so maybe there's some knowledge areas to deepen that are commonly giving you problems and/or move towards a less brittle setup.

Re-evaluating what's important is important. If it's not fun then you should reflect on having the right balance of what is helping you and your family vs causing excessive stress. IMO the "avoid all tech companies" is slightly overblown (blasphemous, I know). It's a good guiding principle but it's fine to "buy services" that make your life better. For example, I self host a lot, but I was totally fine buying a finances tracking app (the spreadsheet-based one) because it's doing a lot of heavy lifting that I can't reasonably do myself at the level of convenience I want.

I'm enjoying the learning process, but yes it can be frustrating. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to backup my postgres DBs.

I don't consider an app deployable until I can run a single script and watch it run. For instance I do not run docker/podman containers raw, always with a compose and/or other orchestration. Not consciously but I probably kill and restart it several times just to be sure it's reproducible.