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.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Jun 19, 2012, which makes it 14 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 3,861 subscribers (+0.35%). It sits just behind r/dogpictures (#950) and ahead of r/howtonotgiveafuck (#952) in our ranking.
What sets r/homelab apart
For its size it is unusually busy: about 76.0 new posts a day per million members, more than 93% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 2.18% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 99% 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
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/homelab grew from 1,091,255 to 1,115,085 subscribers (+23.8K, +2.18%). That is about 542 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
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.
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.
Rules of r/homelab
The moderators of r/homelab list 10 rules. In short:
- Don't be an asshole.
- Post Details.
- Not Homelab Related
- Shitpost/Low Effort
- No piracy
- No Referral Links/Advertising/Company Advertising
- Sales & Offers
- No Pandering
- Giveaways
- 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 1,115,085 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #951 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 23,830 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 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), r/Minecraftbuilds (1.3M), r/diablo4 (1.5M), r/metalworking (1.1M) and r/Terraria (1.6M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). 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.