Guide
A modular home-server starter set: passwords, DNS, sync, monitoring, notifications, media and household recipes. Choose the services you need and add them gradually.
Start with the services that solve a current problem. A password vault or DNS filter changes daily use immediately; sync and media depend on the files and clients you already have. Homepage becomes useful once there are several addresses to remember. Mealie is an optional household service, not a prerequisite for the rest.
Uptime Kuma checks whether an endpoint answers. Beszel collects resource history through agents. ntfy delivers messages after a producer is configured. Running all three on the same machine still leaves its complete failure unreported: use a monitor outside that machine when availability matters.
Keep setup on loopback or a trusted network. Follow each recipe’s initial-account procedure before enabling a public proxy. A VPN narrows exposure; it does not replace application passwords or HTTPS where a client requires it.
The resource total below adds declared minimums. It is not a load benchmark or a recommendation to run every pick together. Keep an off-server backup and test restoration before storing the household’s only copy.
Sets
The sum of the minimums the recipes below declare. It is a floor, not a recommendation: leave room for the operating system, backups and growth.
Why it is here: Start here. A vault is the service that pays for itself on the first day, it needs a quarter of a gigabyte, and the official Bitwarden clients talk to it unchanged — so the household keeps the apps it already knows.
Why it is here: The one service every device benefits from at once, without installing anything on any of them. Point the router at it and filtering applies to the television as much as to the laptop — but arrange a fallback resolver first, because a broken DNS server looks like a broken internet.
Why it is here: A shared launch page for your services and bookmarks. The recipe enables a password; it does not install the linked apps or replace a monitor. Native login rate limiting is not provided.
Why it is here: An always-on peer can keep a copy of shared folders available while other devices sleep. Sync propagates deletions too; use versioning and a separate backup.
Why it is here: Once several services run at home, you need to know which of them stopped answering while you were out. Running the monitor on the same box is the honest compromise: it watches everything except the failure that takes the whole machine down.
Why it is here: Adds CPU, memory, disk and network history. This recipe installs the hub; each real machine needs a separately configured agent and reviewed permissions.
Why it is here: Receives notifications from scripts and compatible services after you configure their integration. Topic access is restricted, but an attachment URL grants access to its holder. Mobile background delivery was not tested.
Why it is here: The lightest way to get value out of a music collection that is currently a folder on a disk. It streams to any Subsonic-compatible client and asks for 256 MB of RAM.
Why it is here: The heaviest thing in this set, and still modest at 1 GB, as long as clients play files directly. Plan for a processor that can transcode only if you intend to watch outside the house.
Why it is here: A separate household recipe collection, meal planner and shopping lists. Keep its database and uploaded images together in backup. External recipe imports were not covered by the current smoke test.