The best part of having a homelab/home server is the reproducible dopamine hits. First you’ll get some dopamine just getting the thing up and running, but then each service I decide to tackle and implement gives me a whole new hit of dopamine. Most services you can get up in a day or two of tinkering/learning even as a system noob like me. On top of that, if you don’t manage to get it working, it’s pretty easy to scrap the attempt and try something easier.

Then you also get dopamine hits whenever something breaks and you manage to fix it. 10/10 would recommend.

If you like being in control of your data, like tinkering with new/emerging tech or industry standard tech, want to break free from Google/Apple/Meta/etc, or if you want to have a hobby similar to working on your car without getting your hands dirty and physically destroying your body, homelabbing may be for you. You can really do whatever you want with it. Make an android app repo, create a DNS server, or NTP time sync server, you can host your own videos with PeerTube, have your own private email server, host a Mastodon or Lemmy instance, or a Bluesky personal data server, you can host your own local LLM or have a Google Photos-like AI photo library with Immich. You can use Frigate to get AI powered security cameras. Theoretically, you could even make your homelab your main PC and just carry around a lapdock for your phone to remote into it. Theres really no limit to what you can do other than your willingness to put in the time and effort, and deal with frustrating scenarios when they come up. I’d rate it 9/10 on the worth it scale, just wish some things could be more streamlined.