Best Self-Hosted Dashboard for Homelabs: Homepage vs Homarr vs Dashy

FTC disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, HomelabAddiction may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

If you want the short answer, Homepage is the best overall self-hosted dashboard for most homelabs in 2026. It is not the lightest option in my tests, and it is not the easiest first-run experience either. What it does better than the others is hold up after the honeymoon phase. The YAML-based config is easy to back up, easy to version, and far less annoying when your stack grows from six apps to thirty.

Dashy is the better pick if you care most about speed, theming, and squeezing a dashboard onto a low-resource box. Homarr still has the nicest visual setup experience, but there is a serious catch now: the public ajnart/homarr GitHub repository currently shows as archived, which makes it a harder recommendation for anyone who values long-term maintainability.

Key Takeaways

Best overall: Homepage
Best if you want the lightest option: Dashy
Best if you hate editing YAML: Homarr
Best for Git-backed homelabs: Homepage
Biggest 2026 caution flag: Homarr's public GitHub repo is archived, so long-term confidence takes a hit
Measured locally on the same Docker host: Dashy used the least memory in my test, Homarr used the most

The testing setup I used

I did not want this to turn into another feature checklist that says every tool is "great for different use cases" and then refuses to make a call.

So I ran all three dashboards on the same Linux ARM64 Docker host on 2026-07-12, using their current default images, and measured five things:

Cold start until the first successful HTTP response
First full page response time with curl -L
Warm average over five page loads
Sampled container memory usage from docker stats
Docker image size from docker image inspect

This is not a giant enterprise benchmark. It is a practical homelab operator test: how annoying is this thing to bring up, and how much overhead does it add before you even start wiring in widgets and integrations?

Comparison table

Tool	Setup style	Cold start until HTTP	First full response	Warm avg of 5 loads	Sampled memory	Docker image size	Best for
Homepage	YAML + Docker label discovery	4.36s	3.28s	0.014s	116.7 MiB	261 MB	Homelabs that treat config like infrastructure
Homarr	Drag-and-drop GUI	7.99s	5.87s	0.121s	191.3 MiB	986 MB	People who want the easiest visual setup
Dashy	YAML + UI editor	1.62s	0.039s	0.009s	42.0 MiB	267 MB	Tinkerers, theming nerds, and low-resource hosts

A few notes on those numbers:

Homarr's slower first run included database migration and onboarding behavior, so its cold-start penalty is partly the cost of a richer app model.
Dashy was the clear winner on raw lightness and quick response in this minimal test.
Homepage was not the fastest to first paint, but once warm it was effectively instant, and it gives you a better long-term config story than Dashy in my view.

Why the dashboard decision matters more than people admit

A dashboard sounds trivial until you have a real homelab behind it.

Once you are juggling a reverse proxy, storage, media apps, admin panels, backup jobs, and a few experiments that should probably have been deleted months ago, the dashboard becomes the front door to your lab. If that front door is hard to maintain, you notice it every time you add a service, change hostnames, or rebuild a stack.

This is the same reason people obsess over reverse proxies and service discovery. Your dashboard is not just a bookmark page. It is the map. If the map is annoying, the lab feels annoying.

If you are still building the rest of your front-end stack, my reverse proxy comparison is worth reading alongside this one: Caddy vs Traefik vs Nginx Proxy Manager: The Real Reverse Proxy Comparison for Your Homelab (2026).

Homepage: the best long-term pick for most homelabs

Homepage's official docs describe it as a fast, fully static dashboard with integrations for 100+ services. That matches the part I care about most: it behaves like something built for operators, not just for screenshots.

Homepage's core strength is that the dashboard lives happily inside the same habits you already use for the rest of your lab. You can keep config files in Git. You can diff changes. You can rebuild the container and know exactly what comes back. If you already treat Docker Compose as source of truth, Homepage fits that workflow cleanly.

The other big win is integration depth. A lot of dashboards can show tiles. Fewer can show genuinely useful widgets without feeling bolted together. Homepage does a good job here, especially for people running mixed workloads like media services, monitoring, DNS, and container stacks.

What I like about Homepage

YAML config is clean and predictable
Docker label discovery is useful when you already label services carefully
Warm load performance was excellent in my test
Strong fit for Git-backed and reproducible homelabs
Large ecosystem and active development signal

What I do not like about Homepage

First setup is less friendly than Homarr's visual editor
It is not the lightest option here
If you hate editing config files, it will feel like homework

Where Homepage wins

Homepage is the tool I would choose if the dashboard has to survive six months of real change instead of six minutes of setup. That matters more than flashy onboarding.

It also pairs well with other stack pieces that serious homelabs usually standardize on. If your lab already depends on tools like Best Self-Hosted Cloud Storage for Homelabs in 2026: Nextcloud vs Seafile vs ownCloud Infinite Scale or Best Self-Hosted Project Management Tools for Homelabs in 2026: Plane vs Vikunja vs OpenProject, Homepage feels like the dashboard version of that same mindset: practical, explicit, maintainable.

Homarr: the easiest dashboard to like on day one

Homarr's official site still does a very good job selling the experience. Drag and drop works. The visual editor is approachable. Built-in auth and app integrations make it feel more like a polished product than a config file with a web face bolted on.

And to be fair, that polish is real. If you want a dashboard that looks good quickly, Homarr is still the easiest recommendation on pure setup experience. It is the one I would show to a friend who wants something pleasant this afternoon and does not want to learn another YAML format.

But this is where the recommendation gets complicated.

The public GitHub repository for ajnart/homarr currently shows as archived. That does not instantly make the software useless. Archived software can keep running just fine in a homelab for a long time. But it does change the risk profile. If I am writing a 2026 buyer's guide, I cannot pretend that long-term project status is a small detail.

What I like about Homarr

Best visual setup experience of the three
Drag-and-drop editing is genuinely nice
Built-in auth and integrations make it feel polished fast
Strong fit for people who want a family-friendly shared homepage

What I do not like about Homarr

Heaviest image and highest sampled memory usage in my test
Slowest first-run numbers in this comparison
JSON / app-state style configuration is less pleasant to version than Homepage YAML
Archived public repo makes long-term confidence harder

Where Homarr still makes sense

Homarr still works as a convenience-first dashboard for people who care more about UI comfort than deep reproducibility. If you run a small family dashboard that mainly links to Jellyfin, your NAS, a download app, and a few utility services, I get the appeal.

If you do go this route, I would treat it as a nice interface choice, not a forever platform bet. Back it up carefully. Keep expectations realistic. Do not pick it because someone told you it was the obvious safe default. In mid-2026, it is not.

Dashy: faster, lighter, and more customizable than most people expect

Dashy's docs are still some of the clearest in this category, and the product itself feels like it was built by someone who enjoys giving you knobs to turn.

That can cut both ways.

If you want your dashboard to look exactly right, Dashy is the most fun option here. Themes, alternate views, status indicators, widgets, API access, and the built-in editor all give you room to tinker. In my local test, it was also the fastest and lightest dashboard of the three. That matters if your "dashboard host" is really just a mini PC already doing five other jobs.

The reason Dashy did not win overall is simpler than the numbers: it can become a little too much dashboard. For some people, that is the point. For me, it nudges closer to a hobby inside the hobby.

What I like about Dashy

Fastest cold start and warm loads in this test
Lowest sampled memory usage in this comparison
Excellent theming and customization
UI editor plus YAML gives you more flexibility than either extreme
Good choice for low-resource hosts and people who like to tweak

What I do not like about Dashy

Easy to over-customize into clutter
The flexibility can be a distraction if you only want a clean front page
Long-term config discipline is still not as tidy as Homepage in practice

Where Dashy wins

Dashy is the best pick if your priorities are speed, lightness, and customization. It is also the tool I would reach for if I were building a dashboard on a Raspberry Pi class box or a shared N100 mini PC where every container should justify itself.

That makes it a sensible companion to lower-cost homelab hardware decisions too. If you are already leaning toward compact hosts, you will probably like the same style of tradeoff I talked about in Best NAS Hardware in 2026: 2-Bay vs 4-Bay vs Mini PC + DAS.

Affiliate picks that fit this setup

If you are spinning up a dedicated dashboard host or rebuilding the front door to your homelab, these are the kinds of purchases that make sense around the project:

Fanless Intel N100 mini PC search on Amazon - plenty for a dashboard, reverse proxy, and a handful of small utility containers
Samsung T7 portable SSD search on Amazon - easy off-box backup target for configs and compose files
APC UPS battery backup search on Amazon - boring purchase, but it stops your dashboard and proxy layer from falling over on every power blip

I would not build a whole article around those products, but they are relevant, practical add-ons for this kind of project.

Who should pick Homepage

Pick Homepage if:

you already keep Docker Compose or infra config in Git
you want the dashboard to be easy to reproduce after a rebuild
you care more about long-term maintainability than first-run friendliness
you want a strong balance of integrations and sane overhead

Avoid Homepage if:

you strongly prefer point-and-click setup
you know you will resent touching YAML every time you add a service

Who should pick Homarr

Pick Homarr if:

you want the smoothest visual setup experience
you are building a shared family dashboard and care about polish first
you do not mind accepting more project-risk and heavier overhead

Avoid Homarr if:

you want the safest long-term bet
you care about current maintenance signals
you are running on constrained hardware and every container matters

Who should pick Dashy

Pick Dashy if:

you want the fastest and lightest option from this comparison
you like theming, custom views, and a dashboard that can be shaped to your taste
you want a middle ground between pure YAML and pure GUI

Avoid Dashy if:

you just want the cleanest operator workflow and zero temptation to over-tune the UI
you prefer a stricter config-as-code experience than Dashy usually encourages

The clear winner

Homepage wins this comparison.

Not because it topped every single metric. It did not.

Dashy was lighter. Homarr was friendlier. But Homepage is the tool I would actually choose to live with, which is the part that matters. It gives you strong integrations, fast warm performance, a sane operational model, and the least buyer regret if your homelab keeps growing.

If I were recommending one dashboard to the average HomelabAddiction reader, it would be Homepage.

If I were recommending a second-place option, it would be Dashy.

If I were recommending the prettiest day-one experience while also warning you that the long-term story is shakier, it would be Homarr.

My practical recommendation by scenario

If your lab is Git-heavy and boring in the best way

Pick Homepage.

If your lab runs on a small box and you love tweaking the interface

Pick Dashy.

If you want a visual editor and can live with more uncertainty

Pick Homarr.

If you mostly want a front page for other self-hosted apps

Start with Homepage, then only move if you discover a real gap.

That last point matters. Dashboard migrations are not the end of the world, but they are still annoying. It is better to start with the tool that is least likely to make you redo everything later.

What to learn next

A dashboard gets more useful when the rest of your front-end stack is tidy. After this article, the best next reads are:

FAQ

Which self-hosted dashboard is best for most homelabs?

Homepage is the best overall pick for most homelabs because it balances integrations, maintainability, and reproducible configuration better than the others.

Which dashboard is easiest to set up?

Homarr is the easiest to like on day one because the drag-and-drop editor removes most of the setup friction.

Which self-hosted dashboard uses the fewest resources?

In my local Docker test, Dashy used the least memory and posted the fastest cold-start and warm-load numbers.

Is Homarr still worth using in 2026?

It can still make sense if you value the visual editor above everything else, but the archived public GitHub repo is a real caution flag for long-term maintainability.

Should I use a dashboard instead of bookmarks?

Once your homelab grows past a handful of apps, yes. A good dashboard gives you service grouping, quicker navigation, and often status or widget data that plain bookmarks cannot match.

Final verdict

If I were rebuilding my dashboard tonight, I would install Homepage first, keep Dashy in mind for lower-resource boxes or highly customized setups, and only choose Homarr if the visual editing experience mattered enough to justify the current maintenance risk.

That is the boring answer, but boring is usually what ages best in a homelab.