About HomeNode
Where geeks build their own internet.
HomeNode is an independent publication dedicated to home labs, self-hosting, and the networking gear that makes it all possible. We write for the tinkerers, the privacy-minded, and the technically curious — people who would rather run their own infrastructure than hand it over to a cloud provider.
Why HomeNode Exists
Modern cloud services are convenient, but convenience comes at a cost — your data, your privacy, and often more money per year than the hardware to replace them. HomeNode started as a personal project to document what actually works when you are building a home lab from scratch in Canada: which NAS enclosures survive a power outage, which routers hold up to OpenWRT, which self-hosted alternatives to Google Workspace are actually usable day-to-day.
What began as notes for ourselves has grown into a resource used by thousands of Canadians every month who are asking the same questions: How do I get started? What hardware should I buy? Which software is worth the learning curve? We try to answer all of it — clearly, honestly, and without assuming you already have a rack full of enterprise gear.
What We Cover
- Home Lab Builds — Full hardware and software walkthroughs for building your first (or fifth) home lab, from a Raspberry Pi cluster to a used enterprise server.
- Self-Hosting Guides — Step-by-step setup for Nextcloud, Jellyfin, Vaultwarden, Immich, Home Assistant, and dozens of other open-source services that replace paid subscriptions.
- Networking Deep Dives — VLANs, pfSense, UniFi, Tailscale, WireGuard, and the fundamentals of building a home network you actually understand and control.
- Hardware Reviews — Honest assessments of NAS enclosures, mini PCs, managed switches, and networking gear available on Amazon.ca, with Canadian pricing context.
- Security & Privacy — Pi-hole, AdGuard Home, DNS-over-HTTPS, and practical steps for keeping your home network private and patched.
Our Editorial Approach
HomeNode does not republish press releases or summarize vendor marketing. Every guide and review is based on hands-on experience with real hardware. When we recommend a product, it is because we have tested it in an actual home lab environment — not because a PR team sent us a sample kit.
We aim for the level of detail you would get from a knowledgeable friend who has already solved the problem you are facing. That means showing our work: config files, terminal output, error messages and how we fixed them. If something did not work the way we expected, we say so.
Meet the Team
Alexander McGregor — Founder & Editor
Alexander started HomeNode after spending too many weekends troubleshooting home lab setups with no single reliable resource to turn to. He oversees editorial direction and writes primarily on networking architecture, self-hosting infrastructure, and hardware selection for Canadian buyers. Based in Calgary, Alberta, he has been running a home lab since the days of physical media servers and never looked back.
Rowan Cole — Senior Writer, Networking & Security
Rowan comes from a background in enterprise networking and brings that experience to home lab contexts — explaining concepts like VLAN segmentation, firewall rule logic, and DNS architecture in terms that do not require a CCNA to follow. Rowan contributes two to three in-depth guides per week and has a particular passion for open-source security tooling and privacy-focused infrastructure.
Affiliate Disclosure
HomeNode is reader-supported. Some links on this site are affiliate links — primarily through Amazon.ca. If you purchase a product through one of our links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Affiliate relationships never influence our recommendations. We only link to products we would genuinely buy ourselves, and we note affiliate relationships transparently wherever they appear.
Get in Touch
Have a question about your home lab setup, a correction to suggest, or a product you think we should cover? We read every message sent to contact@homenode.tech and do our best to respond within a few business days.