For years I hosted my projects on shared hosting and VPS servers. They worked fine, but I always wanted more control. This year I finally built a small home lab setup, and it has been both fun and frustrating.
**The Hardware**
I am running everything on an old Dell OptiPlex 7060 Micro I picked up for about $120. It has an Intel i5-8500T, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB NVMe drive. Not a powerhouse, but more than enough for what I need.
**The Stack**
– **OS:** Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS
– **Web Server:** Nginx with PHP 8.3 FPM
– **Database:** MariaDB 11.4
– **Cache:** Redis for object cache + LiteSpeed Cache plugin
– **DNS:** Cloudflare for CDN and DDoS protection
**What I Learned**
The biggest lesson was that proper caching matters more than raw hardware. With LiteSpeed Cache and Redis, this little OptiPlex serves pages faster than my old $40/month VPS ever did.
Another big lesson was security. Having a machine on your home network that is exposed to the internet requires careful firewall rules, fail2ban, and regular updates. I set up automatic security updates and a WireGuard VPN for admin access.
If you are thinking about self-hosting, start small. Pick up a used mini PC, install Ubuntu, and put one site behind Cloudflare. You will learn more in a weekend than months of using managed hosting.