An old laptop might sound like a dead end to a regular user who has upgraded to a better system. But for home lab enthusiasts, it's an underutilized treasure that can serve as a reliable home server at no additional cost. While new users love jumping on the SBC bandwagon, I prefer turning old laptops and workstations into devices that host my favorite tools and do a small but useful job in the overall setup.

I have one spare laptop with a second-generation Intel Core i3 processor and 12GB of DDR3 memory. I upgraded it a few months before RAM became a hard-to-get commodity. The CPU is modest, but the memory makes it possible to run some of my essential self-hosted apps and save money on subscriptions. Let's discuss the apps that work reliably on the laptop.

Jellyfin is my personal media server

All the memories in one place

I have accumulated a lot of media in the last decade, and Jellyfin makes it possible to view everything in an organized format. There are many media files from my early college days, family gatherings, weddings, and other memories that I can view on multiple devices at home. Jellyfin serves these files over my local network, and all I need to do is type the server’s IP address in any web browser.

The mobile app is an additional perk that reduces the need to struggle with the desktop interface on a mobile phone. Most of the media files that I have are in 1080p or 720p resolution, and streaming them on my phones, laptops, or other devices is not an issue. It doesn't affect me as my laptop doesn't serve 4K or other high-resolution media files.

BentoPDF fulfills my PDF needs

No subscription required

Browsers have basic PDF preview options. Some offer a couple of annotation features along with a preview page, but they cannot replace a full-fledged PDF editor like Adobe Acrobat. I use BentoPDF because it's a self-hosted tool, doesn't force me to sign up or bug me about subscriptions, while offering comparatively similar features to paid alternatives like Adobe Acrobat.

My use cases don't align with monthly subscriptions, as I'm a sporadic user, and Bento PDF is perfect for it. I've used StirlingPDF in the past, but discarded it due to heavy resource usage and changing privacy policies. BentoPDF is extremely lightweight compared to StirlingPDF and can run under 50MB of memory in most cases.

I don't need to worry about memory since it's already 12GB with my recent upgrade, and because Bento PDF is entirely client-side. It means that all PDF activities and processing occur locally in my browser, while the server only hosts the tool’s core files. So, even if I have to process multiple pages or perform batch actions, the laptop doesn't need to worry about resource consumption.

Mealie is my ever-growing cookbook

Planning meals in advance

Mealie is an underappreciated gem in my collection because it solves a recurring problem. I slowly learned to cook over the last couple of years, and Mealie helped me build a digital collection of recipes that I like. Importing recipes into the tool is very easy, as all I need is a URL to store the recipe's contents in my home library.

It's way better than storing a copy of a recipe page because Mealie can assimilate all the information and present it in an easy-on-the-eyes format. It tabulates all the ingredients with accurate measurements, so there’s less chance of confusion. I can plan my weekly meals ahead of time and slowly build a collection of favorite recipes. One thing to note about Mealie is that its memory usage is on the higher side. It used about 300 MB or more and is among the top three in the memory consumption list.

Omnitools is my personal toolkit

No need to visit sketchy websites

Omnitools offers a few PDF-related features, but it's not as comprehensive as BentoPDF. However, my reason for keeping Omnitools on the laptop server is its overwhelming set of media, documents, and conversion tools. It has a tool for almost every task I might need and keeps me from uploading personal files to sketchy free-tool websites.

My two main priorities are converting files to different formats and performing image-related tasks like background removal and compression. Omnitools excels at all these tasks and doesn't budge, even when batch-processing files. It works similarly to BentoPDF, and all the processing happens on the client side.

Nextcloud and Immich cut Google out of my life

Local cloud storage and image management

If you refrain from storing personal data in cloud services like me, Nextcloud can be of immense help. Yes, it's a little harsh on system resources, but since it's a laptop rather than an SBC, I don’t find the experience particularly unpleasant. I use the tool to sync my data from the main system and a few other devices, including the phone, to the laptop. My old laptop has enough storage for personal files, and I can connect a few hard drives or upgrade the storage if file sizes grow. I keep one hard drive connected to it to maintain wireless access to its files.

There’s an additional Google Photos alternative that I use alongside Nextcloud to view my photos. Immich is an exceptional tool and the biggest memory hoarder on my laptop, which allows me to access images directly from the Nextcloud instance. It offers several features and tools that aren’t available in the Nextcloud image tool. OCR is one such example where Immich excels, and I can use a text search to find a related photo.

My old laptop is still useful

Rather than discarding my first-ever laptop or selling it for a small price on eBay, I built a personal app server that remains locally available. Memory and compute resources aren't an issue, as there aren’t five or more concurrent users. I use Mealie, Nextcloud, and Immich daily, while Omnitools, BentoPDF, and other tools come in handy occasionally. The best part is that I don’t have to deal with ads and pop-ups while using them, and my data stays on my machine.