Keep It Techie | The IT Guy Show 023

Homelabs went from weekend hobby to real infrastructure, but nobody hands you the math on when it actually makes sense to build one. Josh from Keep It Techie joined me to work through it, using my own setup as the example.

A few things worth carrying away from this one:

• When a homelab pays off. We talked through subscription fatigue, the self-hosting renaissance, and the point where running your own gear beats renting someone else’s.
• The real costs. Colocation versus a home power bill, hardware refresh cycles, and the hidden stuff like cooling, UPS, and networking that nobody budgets for.
• The apartment problem. Noise, heat, and space are the constraints that decide whether the lab comes home, and we got honest about mine.

If you’re weighing whether to bring the lab home or leave it in colo, this one gives you the questions to ask.