Homarr: A Self-Hosted Dashboard That Doesn't Make You Write YAML

If you've ever set up a self-hosted dashboard, you know the drill. You open a config file, spend twenty minutes figuring out the indentation rules, and then realize you misspelled a service name three levels deep. Homarr takes a different approach. It's a self-hosted dashboard built around a drag-and-drop grid system, and its README makes one thing clear right away: no YAML involved.

What It Does

Homarr is a dashboard for your self-hosted applications. You add apps to a grid, rearrange them however you like, and get realtime updates from widgets that connect to the services you're already running. The grid system is the core of the experience — you drag things around, resize them, and build a layout that makes sense for how you actually use your services.

Under the hood, it uses WebSockets, tRPC, and Redis to push widget updates in real time. That means you're not refreshing the page to see if your download client finished a file or if your media server is still running. The dashboard also includes a built-in search that can query through thousands of data points across supported integrations, plus your own data within Homarr. There's an icon picker with over 11,000 icons, so you can find something that looks right for each app without hunting through external repos.

On the management side, Homarr includes user management with permissions and groups, and it supports single sign-on via OIDC and LDAP. Data is encrypted using BCrypt and AES-256-CBC. The README also notes compatibility with a wide range of hardware — x86 machines, Raspberry Pis, old laptops — and most operating systems, including Windows, Linux, TrueNAS, and Unraid. There's Kubernetes support via Helm if you're running things at a larger scale.

Why It's Cool

The no-YAML pitch isn't just marketing. For a lot of self-hosted tools, configuration files are a barrier that keeps casual users out and frustrates experienced ones who just want to get something running. Homarr's drag-and-drop grid means you can set up a dashboard in minutes without touching a text editor. That's a real quality-of-life improvement if you're managing a home lab and don't want to spend your evening debugging indentation.

• Realtime updates via WebSockets and tRPC. This is the kind of feature that sounds minor until you use a dashboard that doesn't have it. Seeing live status from your services without refreshing makes the dashboard feel like an actual control panel instead of a static bookmark page.

• Broad integration support. The README lists integrations with AdGuard Home, Anchor, ArchiveTeam Warrior, Aria2, Audiobookshelf, Bazarr, and many more. The list is long enough that if you're running common self-hosted software, there's a good chance Homarr already speaks to it.

• User management with SSO. Not every self-hosted dashboard bothers with permissions and groups, let alone OIDC and LDAP support. If you're sharing a dashboard with family members or a small team, this matters. You can give people access without handing everyone the keys to everything.

• Hardware flexibility. The README explicitly calls out compatibility with x86, Raspberry Pi, old laptops, and most major OSes. That's a deliberate choice to meet people where they are. You don't need a rack of servers to run this.

• Encryption and security basics. BCrypt for password hashing and AES-256-CBC for data encryption are standard, sensible choices. It's not flashy, but it's the kind of thing you want to see in a tool that holds credentials for your other services.

The combination of realtime widgets, a built-in search, and an extensive icon picker suggests the project is designed for people who actually use their dashboards daily, not just set them up once and forget about them.

How to Try It

The fastest way to see what Homarr looks like is the live demo at demo.homarr.dev. You can poke around the grid system and see the widgets in action without installing anything.

When you're ready to run it yourself, the installation docs are at homarr.dev/docs/category/installation-1. The project ships Docker images (there's a CI workflow for the Docker image), and the README mentions Helm support for Kubernetes. For most people, Docker is going to be the simplest path.

The repository is at github.com/homarr-labs/homarr. If you want to contribute translations, there's a Crowdin project linked in the README, and there's a Discord server if you need help or want to follow development.

Final Thoughts

Homarr is aimed at people who run self-hosted services and want a dashboard that doesn't fight them. The drag-and-drop grid and no-YAML approach lower the barrier to entry, while features like OIDC/LDAP support and Kubernetes compatibility mean it can scale up if your setup grows. It's not trying to be everything to everyone — it's a dashboard, and it does dashboard things well. If you've been putting off setting up a homepage for your services because you didn't want to deal with config files, this is worth a look.

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