Date: 11/24/2025
Alright, welcome back to the channel! Today, we’re diving into how to supercharge your home lab. I’m talking about 15 Docker containers that will instantly make your life easier and your lab more powerful, even in late 2025.
We’re covering everything from monitoring and automation to networking, security, backups, dashboards, and even DevOps. We’ll be looking at awesome tools like Dozzle, Watchtower, Pulse, Komodo, Netdata, Uptime Kuma, Bitwarden, Homer, Mailrise, NetBox, and a whole lot more. I’m going to show you how they all work together to build a killer home lab stack, whether you’re running Proxmox or any other Docker host.
Before we jump in, I want to remind you about the big home lab share and giveaway! Head over to the VHT forum (link below) and share your 2025 home lab build for a chance to win a surprise giveaway before the end of the year. I want to see what you guys are working on! The forum post with the details is at virtualizationhowto.com/community/home-lab-pics/best-home-lab-server-pics-and-gear-in-2025/.
Okay, let’s get to those containers! Here’s a quick rundown of what we’ll cover (with timestamps so you can jump around):
- 0:00 Intro and what this video covers
- 0:56 2025 home lab share and giveaway details
- 1:24 Dozzle real time Docker log viewer
- 2:09 Watchtower automatic Docker container updates
- 3:14 Pulse monitoring for Proxmox and Docker in one place
- 4:03 Komodo all in one Docker management and observability
- 4:48 Netdata zero touch monitoring and cloud console
- 5:54 Uptime Kuma simple up or down checks and status pages
- 6:38 Bitwarden self hosted password and secrets manager
- 7:12 Homer home lab start page and launcher dashboard
- 7:51 Mailrise SMTP to modern notification bridge with Apprise
- 8:35 NetBox source of truth for racks, IPs, VLANs, and devices
- 9:13 Nginx Proxy Manager easy reverse proxy and HTTPS for containers
- 9:41 phpIPAM IP address management for home lab networks and VLANs
- 10:14 Duplicati backups for Docker volumes and lab data
- 10:41 Pi-hole DNS level ad blocking, telemetry filtering, and malware protection
- 11:17 Gitea self hosted Git, DevOps workflows, and future native CI
- 11:59 Building a complete home lab stack with these containers
- 12:52 Final thoughts and what to try next in your lab
(Then go into detail about each container)
So, as you can see, these containers cover a wide range of home lab needs. By combining them strategically, you can build a robust, automated, and well-managed home lab environment. Don’t forget to check out the blog post linked below for more details and configuration tips. And most importantly, share your 2025 home lab builds in the forum for a chance to win that giveaway! Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video. Don’t forget to subscribe and hit that notification bell!