Containerized Apps for Your Home Network

If you run a home network lab or just like to make your daily routine considerably more effective, I would suggest considering a collection of containers to deploy.

Why?

Well, there are tons of applications on the market that hope to help ease your day a bit. Those applications cover so many different purposes that it’s staggering to try and come up with a “list” of what you should use.

Fortunately, with the help of Docker, you can fairly easily find the applications you might want and deploy them faster than you found them. Because of that, creating your own home lab or home full-service app collection is considerably easier.

Of course, the list of applications people need varies so much that it’s almost impossible to curate a list for everyone. That being said, I’ve conjured up a list of six containerized applications, all of which can be installed from Docker Hub, that I believe can serve as a base for most of your home lab needs. With these containers, you’ll be able to work a bit more efficiently, enjoy a bit more privacy, and build upon them to create a remarkable collection of apps and services to help you avoid using third-party cloud-based tools.

Ready to see the list?

Let’s go.

1. Nextcloud

Nextcloud is always one of my number one containers I suggest deploying. Why? Well, it’s pretty simple. Are you tired of worrying that Google is using your data to either train its AI models or to generate profiles of you? I know I am. In fact, a few years ago, I stopped using Google Workspace for my more important documents (such as the books I write). With Nextcloud, I essentially can have an open-source replacement for Google Workspace that not only includes all of the features, but with the ability to add more. Expand Nextcloud with all sorts of apps, such as talk, team folders, whiteboard, notes, news, kanban, cookbook, file access control, polls, OpenProject integration, and so much more. The amount of available apps is considerable, so you can spend a good amount of time collecting the exact apps you need to fill whatever purpose the base install lacks. Nextcloud is free to install and use, with zero limitations.

2. Jellyfin

Jellyfin is a free media system that simplifies the art of managing and streaming media. As an alternative to Plex, you can serve video and audio content to devices on your LAN. Movies, TV, music, books, photos, live TV, and more can be streamed with this easy-to-deploy media server. Jellyfin is a very popular container on Docker Hub, garnering over a million pulls per week. Once deployed, you can stream content to Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iOS, iPadOS, web browsers, and more. There are third-party clients that can be installed to make connecting with Jellyfin very easy. Jellyfin is free to install and use, without limitations.

3. Watchtower

With several containers deployed to your LAN, you’re going to want to make sure they stay updated, and Watchtower is the app you’re going to want to use. This container ensures that all of your containers are up-to-date. Watchtower monitors all containers on your network and checks against Docker Hub for new versions. If a new version is found, it will automatically pull the new image, gracefully shut down the existing container, remove the old container instance, and restart the container using the new image. Watchtown does this while also preserving the original deployment configurations and options. Unless you want to be using out-of-date containers (or want to manually update them at regular intervals), I would highly recommend you employ Watchtower.

4. Bitwarden

This one is a bit tricky because the official Bitwarden servers are highly secure and reliable. However, there might be an occasion where you have certain vault items that are highly sensitive, and you don’t want to save them on a third-party server. If that sounds like your situation, you can deploy Bitwarden as a containerized server on your LAN. Once deployed, you can connect to that server with your Bitwarden clients and not worry that anyone might intercept your data packets or that a third party could possibly use your data against you. I will say again that the Bitwarden servers are 100% trustworthy, but every situation is different, and you might have your reasons for hosting your vaults within your LAN.

5. Pi-hole

Need to block ads and you’re tired of having to configure such protection on a browser-by-browser, device-by-device basis? If that sounds like you, you’ll be glad to know there’s a containerized application right up your alley. The app in question is Pi-hole, which is a network-wide ad-blocking service that can be deployed to intercept DNS requests, block unwanted domains for the entire network, and provides a web-based interface for the purpose of monitoring and controlling the configuration. Cron is also baked into the container, so ad-lists are constantly updated and logs are flushed.

6. Homepage

Homepage is a very handy container to deploy because it serves as a static, fast, secure, and highly customizable application dashboard. Homepage includes over 100 services that can be includes and the configuration is handled via YAML files or through Docker label discovery. You can add two types of widgets to Homepage: services and information (of which there are tons to choose from). There’s also a quick search, bookmarks, and weather support, and a beautiful/customizable UI. Homepage also supports Docker integration and automatically discovers and adds services to the homepage based on labels.

If you start with these containers on your LAN, you’re already a step ahead with regard to efficiency and effectiveness. Give them a try and see if your home LAN lab doesn’t become more useful.

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