homelab is an Infrastructure as Code and GitOps framework written in Python and released under GPL-3.0 that takes a homelab from an empty disk to running self-hosted services with a single command, built for self-hosters, home-operations practitioners, and anyone who wants to run their own services on Kubernetes.

What it is

homelab is a fully automated framework that provisions, operates, and updates self-hosted services using Infrastructure as Code and GitOps. It installs and manages Kubernetes on bare metal, then deploys and reconciles applications declaratively from Git, so the state of the lab is described in configuration files rather than maintained by hand. The project describes itself as a highly customizable framework that anyone can use to build their own homelab, rather than a fixed product with a single supported shape.

The concrete problem it solves is the manual, fragmented work of standing up a self-hosted environment: installing an operating system, bootstrapping nodes, installing Kubernetes, wiring certificates, DNS records, VPN access, storage, backups, monitoring, and single sign-on. homelab replaces that collection of one-off scripts and manual steps with a single automated pipeline that runs from an empty disk to serving applications. It lives in the Kubernetes and home-operations ecosystem, with the underlying tooling drawn from Ansible, Argo CD, Helm, Docker, and k3s, and it replaces ad-hoc provisioning and hand-managed cluster configuration for self-hosted service stacks.

Key capabilities

• Automated bare metal provisioning with PXE boot, so nodes are imaged without manual installation media.
• Automated Kubernetes installation and management, with automatic rolling upgrades for both the operating system and Kubernetes.
• Application installation and lifecycle managed through GitOps, with automatic application updates that require approval.
• Common self-hosted applications included out of the box, such as Gitea, Jellyfin, and Paperless.
• Automated certificate management and automatic DNS record updates for exposed services.
• Remote access through VPN with Tailscale or Wireguard, plus secure public exposure via Cloudflare Tunnel.
• Supporting infrastructure including a CI/CD platform, a private container registry, distributed storage, multiple environments such as dev and prod, monitoring and alerting, automated backup and restore, single sign-on, and infrastructure testing.
• Network observability with Hubble, built on Cilium and eBPF, alongside monitoring dashboards in Grafana.

Who uses it and how

• Self-hosters running small bare metal fleets; the reference deployment uses four NEC SFF PC-MK26ECZDR machines, the Japanese version of the ThinkCentre M700, each with an Intel Core i5-6600T at 2.70GHz, 16GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD, connected through a TP-Link TL-SG108 eight-port 1000Mbps switch.
• Operators who want a lab for experimenting with new technologies and for practicing for certifications, which the project names as a core reason homelabs exist.
• Members of the Home Operations Discord community, formerly known as k8s-at-home, where homelab concepts and the wider ecosystem are discussed.
• Users splitting workloads across dev and prod environments on the same automated stack, with GitOps reconciliation carrying changes from configuration files to running services.
• Anyone who wants a reproducible pattern for adding or removing components, since the architecture is modular by design.

Getting started

Deployment is done with a single command after updating the configuration files, with PXE boot handling the initial bare metal provisioning step. Full documentation is published at https://homelab.khuedoan.com.

How it compares

No paid products that this project replaces are listed in the available facts, and no directly comparable tools are named either, so on the evidence here it stands alone in this registry as a complete homelab automation framework. Its nearest neighbours are the underlying components it assembles, such as Ansible, Argo CD, Helm, and k3s, but those are building blocks rather than substitutes for the end-to-end pipeline.

When to use it — and when not to

This project is explicitly in ALPHA and experimental: the author states that nothing critical runs on it, that breaking changes may require a complete redeployment, and that a proper upgrade path is only planned for the stable release. A self-hoster adopting it should expect to operate the full stack themselves, including Kubernetes, storage, networking, certificate management, DNS, VPN or Cloudflare Tunnel ingress, CI/CD, the private container registry, and backup and restore. Anyone who needs stability guarantees, a supported upgrade path, or a place to run critical services should wait for the stable release; the 14 open issues and the most recent push in September 2026 suggest an actively maintained but still evolving project.