From Plex to Pi-hole: The Software That Made My Homelab Feel Complete

I've been building out my homelab for nearly half a decade. It's involved many iterations; from hardware to software the makeup of my homelab has all changed many times over the years.

However, I've finally come to a point where I feel things are stable enough to call it "finished"—for now. While I'm sure the software I run and the hardware it runs on will ebb and flow over time, this is where my homelab is right now, and I am very happy with it.

Pi-hole

Pi-hole allows you to block content or trackers at the router-level. It runs as a DNS server that you can point your router (or individual) devices to.

As I seek to have a more privacy-focused smart home , having software like Pi-hole in my homelab allows me to know exactly what network requests leave my house. I'm able to see if a cheap Chinese smart plug is sending data to a remote server and block it. I can also block content that I simply don't want in my house at all, including adult sites and anything else in that vein.

Audiobookshelf

Audiobookshelf is a way to self-host your own audiobooks. Essentially, it can operate like Audible if you have your own audiobook files.

I replaced Audible entirely with Audiobookshelf. While I do still purchase audiobooks on Audible from time to time, I exclusively use Audiobookshelf for playback. I love knowing that the audiobooks on my server will never go away or be altered. I also really enjoy being in full control of the data and analytics of what I listen to. Audiobookshelf has changed how I listen to audiobooks for the better.

Homepage

Homepage is a simple, YAML-based homelab dashboard website. With Homepage, you can easily see what's going on in your homelab at a glance as it hooks into many self-hosted services' APIs to show live data. It's much more than a simple bookmark manager.

I love using Homepage as I can see at a glance what's going on in my homelab . From how many Plex streams are active to how many Docker containers are running in Portainer, how many blocked requests Pi-hole has, and even information on my Unifi network, it's all right there at a glance.

Infrared-MC

If you've not heard of Infrared-MC , then you're not alone. This Minecraft tool isn't well-known, but it's fantastic at what it does. If you've ever tried to host multiple Minecraft servers , then you know the struggle of having to hand out ports like candy. Infrared-MC allows you to route domains (or subdomains) to specific Minecraft server instances.

I love Infrared-MC and couldn't run my homelab without it. I typically have three or more Minecraft servers running at any given time in my homelab, especially because I run my single-player worlds on a server instead of locally. With Infrared-MC, I can give each a domain name and then hand that domain name out. The internal (or external) port can change 100 times because of my network setup, but my users only ever have to remember a simple domain name.

Nginx Proxy Manager

Nginx Proxy Manager is a reverse proxy management system based on the infamous Nginx web server software. While Nginx itself doesn't have any form of a user interface, Nginx Proxy Manager delivers a simple and easy-to-use interface for configuring your reverse proxies.

I use Nginx Proxy Manager (NPM) to handle all of my self-hosted reverse proxies . I run a number of services at home, from Audiobookshelf to Nextcloud , Minecraft servers, the AMP game server manager, and much more. All of these services are accessible via NPM, which also provides me SSL certificates for each domain through Let's Encrypt.

Scrypted

Scrypted is a self-hosted network video recorder/manager. With Scrypted, you can bring in cameras from a plethora of ecosystems and then either view them, transport the feeds to another system (like HomeKit Secure Video), or record them directly to your storage system.

I use Scrypted as a way to manage all of the cameras from around my home . I've used Scrypted to integrate traditional ONVIF cameras as well as RTSP cameras from Abode, Wyze, Arlo, and many other brands. It brings all the cameras into one system and records directly to my local hard drive, bypassing cloud storage needs. It also handles AI object detection for me on-device.

Tautulli

Tautulli is a Plex plugin that extends Plex's normal tracking capabilities. Designed to integrate with Plex, Tautulli gives you more detailed stream information as well as history tracking.

I use Tautulli to help debug Plex streams if there's stuttering or lagging, as it gives a lot more detailed information than the standard Plex streaming info. I also love the tracking features of Tautulli , as it allows me to see what the most (and least) watched content is at a glance.

Unraid

Unraid is one of the best self-hosted NAS operating systems out there. I've tried a majority of the NAS OSes out there and Unraid offers the most features and the easiest interface . Designed to let you use any mixture of hard drive sizes in a storage array, Unraid offers a host of other features like Docker integration and virtual machine management.

I use Unraid to power my primary storage server at home. That server has 12 3.5-inch hard drives plus two M.2 NVMe drives as cache, running on a 2.5Gb/s connection . I store everything on the Unraid server, from my growing media libraries to documents, video footage for my YouTube channel, and even my old photography libraries.

Proxmox

Proxmox is a virtual machine management operating system based on Debian. It's similar to VMWare's vSphere, except Promox offers a completely free community edition .

I use Proxmox to handle all of my virtual machine needs in my homelab. Right now, I only have two VMs running: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for Docker , and Windows 11 for my game servers . The great part about Proxmox is that I can spin up virtual machines in just a few seconds if I need another OS to trial for any reason, all without affecting my other running virtual machines.

Home Assistant

Home Assistant is a self-hosted smart home platform. Designed to integrate with any number of third-party smart home devices, Home Assistant offers local control and can even bridge non-HomeKit devices into HomeKit as if they were native.

I primarily use Home Assistant for its HomeKit integration . I have a lot of cheap smart plugs and switches that don't work in HomeKit natively, and Home Assistant allows me to integrate them into Apple's ecosystem.