Besides the ability to work on wacky computing experiments, hosting your own FOSS applications on a private server is one of the biggest perks of owning a home lab. There’s also a wide variety of services you can host on your local devices, ranging from productivity-enhancing containers and automation applications to utilities designed for programmers and bibliophiles.

Heck, you’ve even got some neat gaming-related tools you can deploy on your server. So, here’s my curated list of the best self-hosted services for members of the home lab and gaming factions.

5 GameVault

Good for GOG and Humble Bundle users

If you’re an avid shopper on the GOG and Humble Bundle platforms, GameVault allows you to showcase your game collection in a Steam-like interface. In addition to letting you import metadata for your favorite titles, GameVault also enables you to share your video game library with your friends and family.

Unfortunately, GameVault is only compatible with the offerings from DRM-free platforms, so it’s borderline useless for Steam and Epic Games Store users. Plus, it’s not available on other operating systems besides Windows, which is why I haven’t ranked it higher on the list.

4 EmulatorJS

Stream retro games to your browser

Emulating timeless classics can be a fun hobby, but what if you could run your games on a mini-PC or SBC and stream them to any device on your home network? EmulatorJS pulls this idea by the reins and kicks it up a notch by letting you access the emulated games from your web browser!

Besides supporting a huge library of consoles, EmulatorJS is powered by RetroArch's libretro cores, so you won’t encounter random performance hiccups or glitches when emulating your favorite titles. Latency isn’t an issue either, and you can easily host it inside a Docker container.

3 RomM

Organize your ROM files like a pro

Managing your ROM collection can be a real pain, especially if you’re the proud owner of several retro consoles. That’s where RomM comes in handy by helping you categorize your arsenal of ripped games and display them in a neat interface. Thanks to its integration with IGDB and MobyGame, RomM can pull the metadata for all your games after scanning the ROM directory.

The best part? It’s compatible with EmulatorJS, so you can self-host both tools on a local NAS to seamlessly share, emulate, and stream your favorite retro games.

2 LinuxGSM

To host your own game servers

Certain multiplayer titles let you self-host private servers, which are ideal for testing mods and minimizing latency for LAN parties. Plus, a custom server lets you tinker with the game rules and conditions to enhance the experience for your playmates. While I’ve used a handful of locally-hosted server management tools, LinuxGSM stands out from its rivals.

Whether you’re a fan of niche games from the previous decade or prefer modern multiplayer titles, LinuxGSM will keep you satisfied with its massive library of compatible games. On top of that, it supports tons of automation, alerts, backups, and monitoring provisions to ensure your game servers remain in tip-top shape.

1 Apollo + Artemis

The dynamic duo for remote game streaming

Few things are as cool as pulling out your smartphone, slotting it into a controller, and using remote streaming tools to play graphically-intensive PC games on it. Speaking of remote streaming apps, Parsec and Sunshine + Moonlight let you run PC titles on your war machine and play them on other devices, though an Apollo server with an Artemis client is the better option for folks with an Android daily driver.

Unlike Parsec, an Apollo and Artemis setup is completely self-hosted, so you don’t have to rely on external servers to authenticate new users. But its support for virtual display is what truly makes Apollo the ideal remote gaming server in my book. Although Artemis is only available on Android, the developer plans to release ports for different platforms. Plus, you’re free to use Apollo with a Moonlight client in the meantime and enjoy the auto-scaling facility to your heart’s content.

Spice up your gaming life by hosting cool services

If you’re looking for other tools to enhance your gaming experience, I’ve got some more recommendations up my sleeve. Without additional tweaks, your self-hosted gaming suite won’t be available outside your local network. Deploying a Headscale/WireGuard server can help you access your locally hosted apps from external networks. While this may sound somewhat unhinged, you can technically use a virtual machine for your gaming workloads by granting it enough CPU and memory and enabling GPU passthrough on the virtualization platform.