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I was using webmin, but since my last server died and I’m making a new one, I decided I’d look into something different, personally I liked webmin but didn’t use most of its functionality and felt a little clunky for my basic use. I’ve also testran casaos but felt weirdly limited and couldn’t smoothly migrate docker containers to interact with its interface.

I can do with just the terminal, but it’s nice having a gui that I can glance at my phone and quickly do stuff like update and reboot.

I personally haven’t seen or found much conversation into the topic so I figured I’d ask and see what you peeps use and why.

Ansible or ssh

@Fierro @selfhosted I mostly use YunoHost as I'm a beginner in self-hosting, but if needed I have command line. Ssh, then even one docker container or two. Mainly on Windows system with powershell or ordinary command line.

My setup is a barebones Alpine Linux with ssh and docker, and everything I run on it is a container (except backups).

Those I manage remotely (remote Docker context), so the only time I have to log in is to do an update for the few system packages and that’s it. And for that ssh is more than enough

I’m running OMV with the Docker Compose plugin and I just SSH in for everything else. I run this stack both at home and work. It’s a good middle ground for me of stability and customizability.

Exactly this! Oh, and gatus for the nice view (mostly own php talking to gatus api)

ssh

I guess, K3s & argocd? Not sure exactly what you’re asking

Whatever you interpret that as since my main goal here is to seed conversation, but the thing that I was thinking of when asking was a web gui with some live stats, doing some simple maintenance stuff, maybe manage or glance at docker/podman status and other services, etc.

Since I’ve seen some conversations about documenting setups so they can be picked up and troubleshot by someone else unfamiliar with the setup like a family member, I expected it would be common to lower the friction for basic maintenance but seeing the amount of ssh comments makes me think otherwise, maybe more people use their servers exclusively for personal entertainment than I expected.

• Proxmox GUI for restarting hosts or vms
• Komodo for restarting containers
• Forgejo for configuring and updating containers (deployed by komodo)
• Ansible for OS updates
• Prometheus + Grafana for monitoring

Those for basic stuff, ssh for everything else.

ssh and portainer.

Cockpit is nice for that. The Podman integration of it is also useful.

more people use their servers exclusively for personal entertainment than I expected.

Uh-huh, think of it like jigsaw puzzles…

I’m currently in the process of setting up my home server again but this was basically my setup before. Alpine Linux + SSH + Docker and I kept everything to a minimum.

This time I’m setting up rootless Podman in place of Docker and as of today the switch over is complete.

I’m thinking of trying to use wireguard as a way to secure my ssh port but I’m still trying to learn and figure out if that’s possible.

With all the security and trust issues hitting the self-hosting headlines, less and simple is completely fine with me.

NixOS and SSH I guess?

SSH and Ansible using SSH

Ssh, dockhand, beszel. They have nice GUI and setting up notification providers is easy. I am using ntfy, so if my CPU is peaking at 90% for a while, or I if any of the containers become unhealthy I get notification to my phone.

For system and docker stats I can only recommend beszel. Portainer for docker management and anything else ssh.

+1 to cockpit. My entire network is domain managed and cockpit makes managing everything so much easier

ssh

🤔 yeah, that and I guess docker?

I use tugtainer for managing updates to containers (not automatic). and aside from that, I just apt upgrade every so often.

Opentofu for all the looking after the config on my proxmox boxes and networking gear. Ansible for everything else.

I don’t currently have any monitoring set up but it’s in the to do list when I feel like it.

So many things. Mostly Kubernetes and FluxCD, but also doco-cd for managing a few deployments on my NAS with GitOps.

• Portainer for Docker containers
• ssh for most real administration tasks
• Olive Tin for repetitive tasks like sudo apt update
• Netdata for server metrics and ntopng for metrics on standalone pFsense box

Check out gatus. Super easy to get up and running depending on what type of monitoring you want to do.

What kind of problems do you catch with beszel?

Power button

The cli.

I have used management interfaces like coxkpit in the last but i do not really like it that much. I have E-Mail Notifications setup for updates via aptitude and monitor using prometheus and grafana and get additional notifications via prometheus alarm manager.

For an easy to use docker interface i use dockge, since i found it in this use case to be faster with a good, working, independend Interface.

But for the Linux underneath, for all 10-20 servers i managae, CLI.

nothing wrong with yunohost. We all started out as noobs at one point in time. My advice though: Don’t think that’s the end point. Branch out when you have motivation/time/etc, and see what happens. The best way to learn is to break shit, then have to fix it. at least IMHO

Check out gatus.

It doesn’t do SNMP. That’s … bold.

Ansible using SSH

The moment you discover anything else, you’re gonna be so pleased. It’ll seem so modern! So fast!

Virtualmin and cockpit

Does proxmox count? Then I run lots of docker containers in lxcs

Hey, you’re the “Ansible is toxic” guy.
What do you use?

I had started out with CasaOS and ran it for a year or so. Last week, I took some time to move everything out of Casa’s file structure and cleaned up the compose files.

For container management, I’m using Dockhand. It’s been great.

Otherwise, like most others have said, SSH when I need to do more.

Terraform, ansible and kubernetes (microk8s).

K8s in particular has been a huge change to simplifying my network despite the complexities involved and the initial learning curve. Deploying and updating services is much easier now.

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

[Thread #198 for this comm, first seen 29th Mar 2026, 13:00] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

So what’s your preferred solution and why?

I run k3s and use Argo CD at work, but it always seemed overkill for my home server. I also would want to use self-hosted Forgejo instead of an external service, but I don’t care to spend time on a setup that bootstraps Forgejo, PostgreSQL and Argo CD, then has all of the above managed by Argo CD.

Home server for me is mostly Ansible for provisioning and systemd for everything else. The trick is keeping it simple enough that you can recover from a broken state without Google. For daily tasks I reach for bare metal SSH or a web interface if it needs to be friendly. K8s is great but I found myself overcomplicating things until I stepped back and remembered: I already know how to SSH into a box.

Proxmox gui and ssh for my LXCs

Forgejo, I can’t help ya with that one

Even though me and another guy set up Argo at work, I wasn’t gonna do it all over again - I pretty much just copied our manifests from work, swapped out the secrets and github urls, and was on the path to success. And the benefits cannot be understated

Proxmox to manage my VMs, SSH for anything on the command line and portainer for managing my docker containers.

One day I will switch probably switch to dockge so my docker-compose files are stored plain on the hard drive but for now portainer works flawlessly.

I second Beszel, it’s such a clean interface, and I can also have it send alerts through Gotify if my shit breaks!

Bash? (And Ansible)

dockge needs me to maintain my dockercompose on its own folder in /opt/ as root.

I just wanna keep my compare in its own repos

Yeah, that would be the ideal scenario I guess.

It should technically be possible by mapping the compose files into the opt folder via docker mounts but I think that’s an unreasonable way to go about this since every compose file would need a mounting point

Huh, that’s not my case at all, I run everything from the home folder with my user

ssh, git and docker compose files.

…and nix config and podman in the lxc for me