Homelab Dashboard Selection Guide: Comparing CasaOS, Glance, and Homepage

Introduction: Why Homelab Dashboards Matter

For self-hosting enthusiasts, a homelab is more than just a bunch of containers and applications running on a local server — it's an ecosystem that demands unified management and monitoring. When your deployed services grow from a handful to dozens, a clear, attractive, and efficient dashboard becomes a necessity.

The "containers" mentioned here refer to application instances running on containerization technologies like Docker. Docker is an OS-level virtualization technology that packages an application and all its dependencies into a standardized unit for execution. Unlike traditional virtual machines, containers share the host machine's operating system kernel, resulting in faster startup times and lower resource overhead. In homelab scenarios, users typically define and manage multiple services through Docker Compose (a YAML-based multi-container orchestration tool). A typical homelab might simultaneously run media servers, download clients, DNS filtering, reverse proxies, and dozens of other containers — which is precisely why a unified dashboard becomes indispensable.

Recently, a Reddit user shared the evolution of their homelab dashboard, progressing from CasaOS at the beginning, to Glance in the middle, and finally settling on Homepage. This evolutionary path is quite representative and reflects a common trend in tool selection across the self-hosting community.

Three Stages: From Out-of-the-Box to Highly Customized

Stage One: CasaOS — A Beginner-Friendly Starting Point

CasaOS is the first stop for many people entering the self-hosting world. At its core, it's a lightweight home cloud system built on Docker, offering a graphical app store and a visual management interface. For users new to homelabs, CasaOS's greatest advantage is its "out-of-the-box" experience — you can deploy common applications with a single click, virtually without writing any configuration files.

However, CasaOS's "simplified" design is a double-edged sword. As user requirements become more complex — such as integrating external services, customizing layouts, or deeply incorporating monitoring data — CasaOS's relatively closed architecture starts to show its limitations. It functions more as an application manager than a true "dashboard."

Stage Two: Glance — An Attempt at Information Aggregation

As needs evolved, the user turned to Glance. Glance is a dashboard tool that has gained considerable popularity in the self-hosting community in recent years, and its positioning is distinctly different from CasaOS — it emphasizes "information aggregation."

Glance can simultaneously display RSS feeds, weather, stock quotes, system monitoring metrics, Docker container status, and various other information widgets on a single page. It's driven by YAML configuration files, giving users greater freedom to arrange information cards according to their preferences. YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a human-readable data serialization format widely used in DevOps and infrastructure configuration due to its clean indentation-based syntax. Compared to GUI-based configuration, YAML configuration files offer several advantages: they can be version-controlled through Git, tracking every change; they're easy to back up and migrate, requiring only a copy of the configuration file to rebuild a complete dashboard in a new environment; and they support templating and variable substitution, which is far more efficient than clicking through configurations one by one when managing a large number of services. This is why experienced self-hosters generally prefer the "Configuration as Code" approach.

For users who like to use their dashboard as a "personal information hub," Glance is a very appealing choice.

Stage Three: Homepage — The Final Destination

Ultimately, the user chose Homepage as their long-term solution. Homepage is currently one of the most popular dashboards in the homelab community, striking an excellent balance between flexibility, aesthetics, and service integration capabilities.

Homepage's core strength lies in its powerful service integration capabilities. It has built-in API support for hundreds of common self-hosted applications, capable of directly displaying real-time status and key data from each service — such as media currently playing on Plex, qBittorrent download speeds, Proxmox resource utilization, and more.

It's worth elaborating on why Homepage has become the community's mainstream choice: the key lies in the elegant design of its "widgets" system. Homepage maintains an extensive service adapter list, with each adapter encapsulating the API call logic for the target service. For example, when a user configures a Plex widget, Homepage uses Plex's REST API to fetch information about currently playing media, the number of active streams, and other data, displaying it as visual cards. As of 2024, Homepage natively supports API integration with over 100 services, and the community continues to contribute new adapters. This combination of "out-of-the-box deep integration" and "fully configurable flexibility" sets it apart from other dashboard tools.

Proxmox VE (Virtual Environment), mentioned above, is one of the most popular virtualization management platforms in the homelab community. It's an open-source, enterprise-grade virtualization platform built on Debian Linux, supporting both KVM virtual machines and LXC containers. Users typically install Proxmox on a physical server and then create multiple virtual machines or containers within it to run different services. By integrating Proxmox's API through Homepage, users can view CPU, memory, and disk usage as well as the running status of each virtual machine directly on the dashboard, achieving a unified resource monitoring view.

Plex and qBittorrent, meanwhile, are representative components of what's known as the "media automation stack" in homelabs. A complete media automation stack typically includes: Plex or Jellyfin (media servers for streaming playback), Sonarr/Radarr (automated tracking and management of TV shows/movies), Prowlarr (indexer management), and qBittorrent or Transmission (download clients). Beyond the media stack, common self-hosted services also include Pi-hole/AdGuard Home (DNS-level ad filtering), Nginx Proxy Manager/Traefik (reverse proxy), Vaultwarden (password management), Nextcloud (private cloud storage), and more. It's the continuous growth of these services that drives the pressing need for a unified dashboard.

At the same time, Homepage is entirely managed through configuration files, supporting deeply customizable layouts, icons, and groupings. Combined with custom background images, it enables the creation of dashboards that are both functional and visually appealing.

The Logic Behind the Evolution: Needs Drive Tool Selection

The CasaOS → Glance → Homepage evolutionary path actually mirrors the growth curve of most self-hosting enthusiasts:

From prioritizing ease of use to prioritizing control. In the beginner stage, the focus is on quick onboarding and a low barrier to entry, which CasaOS satisfies well. As experience accumulates and service scale expands, users begin pursuing greater customization freedom and more granular control, and configuration-file-driven tools gradually replace graphical one-click deployment.

From feature accumulation to service integration. Glance focuses on the richness of information display, while Homepage emphasizes deep linkage with actually running services. When a dashboard is no longer just about "looking good" but truly becomes a gateway for operations and a monitoring center, service integration capability becomes the deciding factor.

It's worth noting that the user also mentioned creating custom background images. This detail reflects an interesting phenomenon in homelab culture — dashboards are not just functional tools but also vehicles for expressing personal aesthetics and digital lifestyle. Many enthusiasts spend considerable time polishing interface details, pursuing what's known as the "aesthetic" experience. In Reddit communities like r/homelab and r/selfhosted, "dashboard showcases" are among the most popular content types, where users share their carefully designed interfaces. This culture has driven the continuous evolution of visual customization capabilities in tools like Homepage.

Advice for Self-Hosting Beginners

If you're getting ready to set up your own homelab dashboard, this case study offers some practical guidance:

• You don't need to get it perfect from the start. Starting with beginner-friendly tools like CasaOS is entirely reasonable — first familiarize yourself with Docker and the basic concepts of self-hosting.
• Clarify your core needs. If you're after information aggregation, Glance is a solid choice; if you need in-depth monitoring and management of numerous services, Homepage is more suitable.
• Embrace configuration files. While YAML configuration has a learning curve, the control, portability, and version management convenience it provides are well worth the investment in the long run. Putting your configuration files under Git version control is a widely recommended best practice — you'll be grateful for this habit when you need to migrate servers or roll back a faulty configuration.

Conclusion

The evolution of a homelab dashboard is fundamentally a process of deepening the relationship between a user and their digital infrastructure. From the initial encounter with CasaOS, to the exploration of Glance, to the deep commitment to Homepage, each tool transition reflects growing needs. For self-hosting enthusiasts, there is no "best" dashboard — only the "best fit for the current stage." And this ongoing process of tinkering and continuous optimization is perhaps the very essence of what makes homelab culture so compelling.