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r/homelab

r/homelab is a safe-for-work community on Reddit, ranked #949 on SubMouse with 1,119,319 subscribers and about 85 new posts a day.

Rank (SFW)#949
Subscribers1.1M
Growth since Nov 2+4.2K
Posts per day85
Posts all time305.7K
CreatedJun 2012
Visit r/homelab on Reddit ↗

About r/homelab

In its own words:

Welcome to your friendly /r/homelab, where techies and sysadmin from everywhere are welcome to share their labs, projects, builds, etc.

Community guide

r/homelab (#951, about 1.2 million) is where sysadmins and techies share home labs, racks and projects—detail-rich showcases welcome, piracy and referral spam are not.

What belongs

Homelab builds and ops talk (about 85 posts/day). Rules: don’t be an asshole; post details; must be homelab-related; no shitposts; no piracy; no referral/company ads; sales/offers limits; no pandering; giveaway/AMA norms.

Versus sysadmin

sysadmin is workplace IT. homelab is the self-funded rack in the basement (LabPorn flair and all).

Practical pointers

Include hardware/software details; skip affiliate links and piracy.

The community was created on Jun 19, 2012, which makes it 14 years old. Since Nov 2, 2026, it has gained 4,234 subscribers (+0.38%). It sits just behind r/raisedbynarcissists (#948) and ahead of r/NotMyJob (#950) in our ranking.

What sets r/homelab apart

For its size it is unusually busy: about 75.8 new posts a day per million members, more than 92% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 2.57% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 98% of the Top 100. Its rhythm is strongly tied to time zones: the busiest hour (15:00 UTC) sees about 4.6× as many posts as the quietest (23:00 UTC).

Subscriber growth

1.12M1.09MSep 19Nov 9, 2026

Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026, r/homelab grew from 1,091,255 to 1,119,319 subscribers (+28.1K, +2.57%). That is about 550 new members per day. The chart shows 10 weekly subscriber counts.

Top posts on r/homelab this week

This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Nov 8, 2026).

  1. How did they not pick r/homelabsales for this?u/Accurate-Ad6361 · Nov 2 · image
  2. This hobby is very addicting...u/aloofkid · Nov 5 · image
  3. I dont like how much vulnerabilities dropped these last few monthsu/ServerSniffer64 · Nov 1 · image
  4. Who's withholding?u/1337pwn3d · Nov 3 · image
  5. My homelab diagram. Always wanted to make one of these, finally didu/goblinmine · Nov 7 · gallery
  6. Phone serveru/urban_piktor2030 · Nov 1 · gallery
  7. RAM meme dumpu/LAKnerd · Nov 3 · gallery
  8. How much of your homelab's RAM is actually idle? I wrote a script that reports it to Sam Altmanu/IainKay · Nov 6 · text post
  9. Pour One Out For My Homies - 27 Years of Exchange at Homeu/Meta4X · Nov 5 · image
  10. suffering from crippling addiction am i cookedu/hasanismail_ · Nov 2 · image

All-time top posts

The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/homelab, from 2017 to 2026, ranked by Reddit.

  1. Gigabit router was only hitting 100Mb. Diagnosis: Cat8 cableJul 7, 2021 · 14,248 points · 278 comments · image
  2. Got an alert that just my 2nd CPU temps were elevated and investigated…u/GuardrailIX · May 13, 2025 · image
  3. My friend actually built a whole ass data Center at home 😭u/mormied · Feb 14, 2025 · image
  4. APC appreciation postu/redfoxkiller · Dec 21, 2025 · image
  5. Quick reminder to pull out the wireless card out of your LG smart tv 😉u/_benj · Oct 4, 2026 · image
  6. The Best Book for Homelabbersu/serioussam1215 · May 11, 2017 · 7,469 points · 141 comments · image
  7. A school in my area closed down and I was given the chance to pay 1000€ to pull all of their networking equipment (and keep it)u/geek_at · Feb 1, 2025 · image
  8. Homelab is still running after missle shot💪💪💪u/PeterPorox · Aug 21, 2026 · gallery
  9. What do you guys think of my minilab "Saturn V[U]"u/Dossi96 · Apr 15, 2025 · gallery
  10. Got paid in hardware for a gig recently. Can’t say I’ve ever been paid in gold bars before.u/gpot97 · Jan 8, 2026 · image

What r/homelab talks about

Looking at the titles of 615 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “server”, “home”, “lab”, “setup” and “built”. Other frequent themes are ram, help, rack, proxmox, nas and looking. Recurring phrases include “home server”, “home lab”, “opnsense plugin” and “strategy lab”. By format, 49% are text posts, 20% are images and 18% are galleries.

  • server 66
  • home 57
  • lab 35
  • setup 31
  • built 29
  • ram 28
  • help 27
  • rack 24
  • proxmox 22
  • nas 18
  • looking 17
  • build 16
  • mini 15
  • advice 15
  • router 15
  • question 13
  • local 12
  • network 11

Popular post flairs: Help (206), Discussion (154), Project Showcase: Hardware (96), Project Showcase: Operations (25), LabPorn (20), Diagram (10).

Activity and best time to post

r/homelab gets about 85 new posts a day. The public archive holds 305,663 posts and 3,973,264 comments in total, about 13.0 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Monday (103 posts) and the quietest was Wednesday (72). Posting peaks around 15:00 UTC and is lowest around 23:00 UTC.

00: 310001: 2402: 2303: 200304: 2005: 1206: 130607: 1108: 1809: 230910: 2211: 3612: 261213: 2614: 3815: 461516: 3517: 3318: 431819: 2720: 3321: 252122: 2523: 10
Posts per hour of the day, UTC, Oct 29, 2026 – Nov 4, 2026
Text posts 49%Images 20%Galleries 18%Links 12%

Rules of r/homelab

The moderators of r/homelab list 10 rules. In short:

  1. Don't be an asshole.
  2. Post Details.
  3. Not Homelab Related
  4. Shitpost/Low Effort
  5. No piracy
  6. No Referral Links/Advertising/Company Advertising
  7. Sales & Offers
  8. No Pandering
  9. Giveaways
  10. AMA's

How to join

Open reddit.com/r/homelab and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.

Frequently asked questions

How many members does r/homelab have?

r/homelab has 1,119,319 subscribers (Nov 9, 2026), which makes it the #949 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 28,064 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026.

When was r/homelab created?

r/homelab was created on Jun 19, 2012, so it has been around for 14 years.

Is r/homelab still active?

Yes. r/homelab gets about 85 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 305,663 posts and 3,973,264 comments. In a sample of 615 recent posts we counted 546 different authors.

What is the best time to post in r/homelab?

Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Monday and the quietest Wednesday, and most posts arrive around 15:00 UTC, with the fewest around 23:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.

What kind of posts are on r/homelab?

The community describes itself as: “Welcome to your friendly /r/homelab, where techies and sysadmin from everywhere are welcome to share their labs, projects, builds, etc.” Recent post titles often mention server, home, lab, setup and built. Most posts are text posts (49%).

Is r/homelab SFW?

Yes. Reddit does not mark r/homelab as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.

What are the rules of r/homelab?

Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/homelab accepts both text and link posts, with images, galleries and polls enabled. It has 10 posted rules, starting with: “Don't be an asshole.”; “Post Details.”; “Not Homelab Related”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.

What subreddits are similar to r/homelab?

Communities with similar topics include r/sysadmin (1.3M).

Stats from public data (data updated Nov 9, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/homelab.

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