It feels like every time you open a new tab, a billion-dollar company is trying to sell you something. Whether it’s an ad, a news story, or a sponsored shortcut. I just feel like I’ve got a new tab fatigue. Many other users feel similarly, which has led to the rise of personal home pages. Why look at what Google wants you to see when you can look at the health of your server, your local weather, and your actual bookmarks? By self-hosting your start page, you reclaim your focus and create a centralized command center for your digital life. A self-hosted dashboard isn’t a one-size-fits-all, so here are five different options for you to try out so that you can bypass that new tab fatigue.
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Homepage
The current king
Homepage is a modern, sleek, and high-performance dashboard. It’s highly customizable with integrations for over a hundred services and translations into multiple languages, and can be easily configured via YAML files or through Docker label discovery, whichever works best for you. It’s extremely powerful and features service widgets that don’t just link to your apps, whether that’s Plex, Pi-Hole, or Proxmox to name a few, but also show real-time stats directly on the tiles so you don’t even have to click into them to monitor. You also get Docker integration which can automatically detect running containers on your server and add them to your dashboard.
The homepage website talks you through the installation process and configuration process, so if you’re feeling slightly intimidated, they’re with you every step of the way. It can be installed on Docker, Kubernetes, Unraid, or it can be built from source if Docker isn’t your thing.
Homarr
The drag-and-drop powerhouse
Homarr is one of the more simple dashboards on this list. It’s powerful and puts all of your apps and services at your fingertips. It seamlessly integrates with the apps you’ve added, providing you with valuable information. And the best part is that it has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop system, meaning that you can simply move parts of your dashboard using your mouse or your finger if using a mobile device, with no YAML or JSON configurations involved at all. It has authentication and authorization built-in with support for OIDC and LDAP. You also have the option to choose between 26 languages.
This takes the crown for those who don’t want to edit a whole load of text files. It’s the most approachable for those who are just getting into self-hosting. It features a 4G UI-based editor where you can resize widgets, move icons, and change layouts without ever touching a terminal. It also has an integration store that makes it easy to add complex monitors, like active download speeds from qBittorrent for example, in just a few clicks. There are over 10,000 icons to choose from.
Dashy
The extreme edition
Dashy is an open-source and highly customizable dashboard app. It provides you with extreme customization for the tinkerers among us. If you want your new tab to look like a terminal, a retro OS, or a minimal art piece, Dashy is the tool, giving you options to adjust as you wish. It has built-in status monitoring that pings every link to tell you if a service is down. It’s also worth noting that Dashy is privacy-first with optional end-to-end encrypted cloud backups for your configuration.
You can access a live demo of Dashy over on the website, so that way you can know if it’s right for you before fully installing and configuring it. There’s also a quick start guide detailing how to install and configure this dashboard.
Heimdall
The simple choice
The Heimdall application dashboard prioritizes simplicity and elegance. It’s a dashboard for all your web applications, but you can add links to anything you like. This is for the minimalist who just wants a clean grid of icons without all of the fuss. It has a foundation and enhanced app systems. For common apps, it automatically pulls the correct icon and color scheme, but for more enhanced apps, you have the option of picking more detailed tiles that can display information at a glance without the need to even open the application.
If you’re someone who wants to set up a new dashboard in 5 minutes and then never touch the settings again, then Heimdall is probably for you. It’s the most “Apple-like” experience of self-hosted dashboards with its simplistic appearance and UI, and it’s virtually plug-and-play setup.
Flame
The ultra lightweight start page
Flame is a super simplistic, self-hosted dashboard for your server where speed is the only priority. It’s incredibly lean, meaning if you’re running your dashboard on a low-power device like an old Raspberry Pi Zero, Flame will load instantly, and you don’t have to worry about any bloating. It also includes a pinned search bar that you can configure to use Stock.go, your own CXNG incidents, or even internal documentation.
It’s available on GitHub and is completely open source. It’s easy to set up and use, and built-in editors allow you to set up your very own application hub without any file editing necessary.
How to make these your new tab page
Once you’ve set up your own self-hosted dashboard, the next hurdle is making one of these your new tab page. Unfortunately, browsers don’t make this easy anymore. The solution is the need for a browser extension like New Tab Override for Firefox or Custom New Tab for Chrome, and then point the browser to your local IP or internal domain. If you’re someone who wants a clean URL, then you can use a reverse proxy like Nginx Proxy Manager and then have a URL like home.lan. This will look significantly cleaner and smoother whenever you open a new tab.
A new tab should be a tool, not a billboard, and your browser is the window to your world. Make sure you’re the one choosing the view. Rather than having countless ads or new stories that you’re never going to click on, make your new tab page something you can actually use with little fuss. The above dashboards will give you the option to go ultra custom or opt for something simple and lightweight that will take you five minutes to set up. There really is an option for everyone.
