Best Home Server Dashboards 2026: Homepage vs Homarr vs Dashy

Running a home server often means managing a dozen or more Docker containers — Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Home Assistant, Pi-hole, and whatever else you have accumulated over the years. Without a unified dashboard, you are either memorizing port numbers or opening a spreadsheet. A homelab dashboard solves this by giving you a single web page to access every service and check its status at a glance. If you are also running lightweight self-hosted apps, having a clean entry point becomes even more valuable.

In 2026, three tools dominate the self-hosted dashboard space: Homepage (minimal, YAML-driven), Homarr (feature-rich, drag-and-drop), and Dashy (highly customizable UI). This article compares all three so you can pick the right one for your setup without trial and error.

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TL;DR Comparison Table

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Homepage: Speed and Simplicity

Homepage (GitHub) is built around one idea: do as little as possible while still being useful. There is no database, no web-based editor, and no persistent state beyond your config files. Everything is defined in YAML, and the app reads those files on startup. That makes it fast to boot, trivial to back up, and easy to version-control with Git.

As of v0.9+, Homepage ships with integrations for over 400 services. You add a service entry in services.yaml, point it at your local IP and port, and Homepage automatically pulls live data — disk usage from Nextcloud, currently playing from Jellyfin, query counts from Pi-hole. It calls the upstream API directly; there is no polling daemon running in the background consuming CPU.

Docker Compose installation:

services:
  homepage:
    image: ghcr.io/gethomepage/homepage:latest
    container_name: homepage
    ports:
      - 3000:3000
    volumes:
      - ./config:/app/config
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
    restart: unless-stopped

Minimal services.yaml example (Jellyfin + Nextcloud):

- Media:
    - Jellyfin:
        href: http://192.168.1.100:8096
        description: Media server
        icon: jellyfin.png
        widget:
          type: jellyfin
          url: http://192.168.1.100:8096
          key: your-api-key

- Cloud:
    - Nextcloud:
        href: http://192.168.1.100:8888
        description: File sync
        icon: nextcloud.png
        widget:
          type: nextcloud
          url: http://192.168.1.100:8888
          username: admin
          password: your-password

Strengths: At around 30MB RAM idle, Homepage is the lightest option by a wide margin. On an Intel N100 or any ARM single-board computer, this barely registers. It also starts in under two seconds, which matters if you restart containers frequently.

Weaknesses: If you are not comfortable editing YAML files, the learning curve is real. There is no way to rearrange tiles with a mouse — you edit the file, save, and refresh. Widget support is read-only; you cannot trigger actions from the dashboard. For users who want more interactivity, this feels limiting.

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Homarr: The Feature-Rich Choice

Homarr (GitHub) takes the opposite approach from Homepage. Configuration happens entirely through a web UI: drag tiles, resize them, add widgets, and save. No YAML editing required. This makes it the most accessible option for users who prefer point-and-click over text files.

The Docker integration in Homarr v0.15+ is the most capable of the three tools. It can automatically discover running containers, display their status, and let you start or stop them directly from the dashboard. If you run a busy Docker host with 20+ containers, Homarr's container management view alone justifies the extra memory overhead.

Docker Compose installation:

services:
  homarr:
    image: ghcr.io/ajnart/homarr:latest
    container_name: homarr
    ports:
      - 7575:7575
    volumes:
      - ./homarr/configs:/app/data/configs
      - ./homarr/icons:/app/public/icons
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
    restart: unless-stopped

After the container starts, navigate to http://your-server-ip:7575 and the setup wizard walks you through adding your first services.

Widget highlights in 2026:

• System resources: CPU, RAM, disk, and network usage in real time
• Weather: Current conditions and forecast
• Calendar: Integrates with Nextcloud Calendar or Google Calendar
• Media requests: Native integration with Overseerr and Jellyseerr for managing Plex/Jellyfin request queues
• RSS feeds: Pull headlines from any RSS source directly into a tile

Note that Homarr is focused on being a dashboard and launcher, not a full monitoring stack. For deep metrics, alerting, and historical graphs, see the Beszel vs Uptime Kuma vs Grafana monitoring comparison — those tools serve a different purpose and complement a dashboard rather than replace it.

Strengths: No YAML, no terminal required after initial Docker setup. The drag-and-drop layout editor is intuitive, and the widget library covers the most common homelab use cases out of the box. Docker container management from the browser is a genuine time saver.

Weaknesses: At roughly 100MB RAM idle, Homarr uses three times more memory than Homepage. Response time is also noticeably slower on page load, particularly on low-end hardware. If your server is memory-constrained, that overhead matters.

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Dashy: Maximum Customization

Dashy (GitHub) occupies a middle ground between Homepage's minimalism and Homarr's feature density. It prioritizes visual customization above all else. The app ships with dozens of built-in themes, supports custom CSS injection, and offers multiple layout modes including a grid, columns, and a minimal list view.

Configuration in Dashy v3.0+ can be done via YAML or through an in-browser editor. The YAML schema is more complex than Homepage's, but the web editor provides a form-based interface that reduces the need to write raw YAML by hand. This hybrid approach gives you more flexibility than Homarr's pure UI editor while remaining more approachable than Homepage's plain text config.

Docker Compose installation:

services:
  dashy:
    image: lissy93/dashy:latest
    container_name: dashy
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    volumes:
      - ./dashy/conf.yml:/app/user-data/conf.yml
    restart: unless-stopped

After starting the container, visit http://your-server-ip:8080. Without a conf.yml present, Dashy loads a default demo configuration you can modify from the in-browser editor.

Strengths: The visual output is the most polished of the three. Custom themes, background images, icon packs, and CSS overrides give you full control over how the dashboard looks. For users who treat their homelab as something worth presenting, Dashy produces the most attractive result. The status-check feature verifies that each service URL is reachable and marks it with a colored indicator — no Docker socket required.

Weaknesses: Docker integration lags behind Homarr. Dashy can check if a service URL responds, but it cannot display container stats or control containers. The configuration schema also has a steeper learning curve than the other two; getting a multi-section layout with status checks and custom icons configured correctly takes more time upfront.

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Resource Usage on Intel N100

The Intel N100 typically ships with 8–16GB of RAM in mini PCs like the Beelink EQ12 or SZBOX N100. For more hardware options, see the Best Low-Power Mini PCs 2026 guide. All three dashboards run comfortably on that platform, but the numbers below matter if you are stacking many containers on the same host.

On an N100 with 8GB RAM running a typical self-hosted stack (Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Pi-hole, Home Assistant, Vaultwarden), you have roughly 2–3GB available for overhead services like dashboards and monitoring. All three tools fit within that budget, but Homepage leaves the most headroom.

If you are building a Docker stack on the N100 and want guidance on container organization, keep an eye on the N100 Docker Stack Guide (/blog/builds/n100-docker-stack) — that article is planned for April 2026 and will cover service ordering, network configuration, and resource limits in detail.

The practical takeaway: on an N100 with 16GB RAM, pick any of the three. On an N100 with 8GB RAM running 15+ containers, Homepage's 30MB footprint is meaningfully better than Homarr's 100MB.

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Which Dashboard Should You Choose?

After running all three on the same hardware and comparing day-to-day usability, here is a straightforward breakdown:

Choose Homepage if:

• You are comfortable with YAML and prefer config-as-code
• You run 20 or more services and want fast page loads
• Your hardware has limited RAM (under 8GB available for the Docker stack)
• You want to version-control your dashboard configuration in Git
• You prioritize startup speed and low idle resource usage

Choose Homarr if:

• You want to configure everything through a browser with no file editing
• Docker container management from the dashboard is important to you
• You want built-in widgets for weather, calendar, and media requests
• You are setting up a dashboard for a household where others will use it and you want an accessible UI

Choose Dashy if:

• Visual customization matters to you — themes, layouts, custom CSS
• You want service status checks without connecting the Docker socket
• You want to share a dashboard link with others and have it look professional
• You are comfortable with a moderate learning curve in exchange for more visual control

There is no wrong answer here. The best homelab dashboard for 2026 is the one you will actually maintain. Homepage is harder to set up for non-technical users but costs almost nothing to run. Homarr removes friction at the cost of memory. Dashy gives you the most control over appearance if that matters to you.

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Conclusion

Homepage, Homarr, and Dashy each solve the same problem — a unified entry point for your self-hosted services — in meaningfully different ways. Homepage is the right call if you value performance and are comfortable with YAML. Homarr wins on ease of use and Docker integration. Dashy excels when visual customization is the priority. Pick based on your workflow and hardware constraints, and you will have a solid home server dashboard running in under ten minutes.

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Resources

• Homepage GitHub: https://github.com/gethomepage/homepage
• Homarr GitHub: https://github.com/ajnart/homarr
• Dashy GitHub: https://github.com/Lissy93/dashy
• r/selfhosted: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted
• r/homelab: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab