How to Set Up a Self-Hosted Media Server in 2026: Plex vs. Jellyfin, Plus the Hardware You Actually Need
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Homelab
Author name: Rowan Cole
Rowan Cole writes about home networking, firewall configuration, and the practical application of enterprise security concepts to a homelab that does not have a dedicated IT budget. He spent over a decade working in enterprise network operations before redirecting that experience toward explaining pfSense and OPNsense to people who have never typed a route into a CLI. His home setup includes segmented VLANs for IoT devices, guest traffic, and trusted hardware, a WireGuard server for remote access, and recursive DNS with ad blocking at the resolver level. He rebuilt this stack three times over the past four years, and each rebuild produced a cleaner article explaining what he changed and why. Rowan dislikes jargon for its own sake. When a technical term is necessary he defines it in plain language the first time it appears and does not repeat the definition condescendingly. His guides are written for homelab builders who understand that their threat model is different from a hospital network but still want meaningful security rather than a false sense of it. He covers hardware selection, configuration walkthroughs, and the specific failure modes he has encountered so readers can recognize them before they become a problem at two in the morning. Articles published under this byline are drafted with AI assistance and edited by a human reviewer before publication. Published by Auburn AI, Calgary AB.
