Home Lab
A personal always on server running in your home that hosts services locally, keeping your data private and under your control.
A home lab is a server, or collection of servers, running inside your home that hosts services locally on your own hardware.
What it actually is
The hardware can be as small as a Raspberry Pi 5 or as large as a rack-mounted server. What defines it is not the size but the approach: it runs continuously, sits on your home network, and handles services that would otherwise live in the cloud.
Common uses include local DNS resolution and ad blocking, file storage, home automation, media serving, and AI inference. Because the hardware is in your home, your data stays there too. You are not depending on a third party's uptime, their pricing decisions, or their terms of service.
Why always on matters
A home lab runs continuously. You do not wake it up to use it. This rules out a laptop or a desktop you shut down and points toward low-power hardware like a Raspberry Pi that draws little electricity around the clock.
Control happens remotely via SSH from any computer on your network. No monitor, keyboard, or mouse required at the server itself.