butterski/homelab-builder repository overview

⁠HLBuilder

HLBuilder is a comprehensive, interactive web application designed to simplify the process of planning and architecting home laboratory infrastructure. It provides users with a visual interface to design network topologies, receive intelligent hardware recommendations based on their self-hosting needs, and generate actionable shopping lists.

⁠Docker Hub Only (No Local Build)

Use this when you want to run HLBuilder from published images only. This still uses Docker Compose because HLBuilder needs two containers: the app image and Postgres.

mkdir hlbuilder
cd hlbuilder

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Butterski/homelab-builder/master/docker-compose.yml
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Butterski/homelab-builder/master/.env.hosted.example -o .env

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

docker compose pull should pull exactly these images:

butterski/homelab-builder:latest
postgres:17

Open http://localhost:3000.

Do not run only docker run butterski/homelab-builder:latest unless you also create a PostgreSQL container on the same Docker network. The app container expects DB_HOST=postgres, which is provided by the Compose service name.

⁠🚀 Key Features

⁠1. Visual Network Builder

The core of the application is a visual canvas powered by ReactFlow.

• Drag-and-drop hardware nodes: Routers, switches, servers, NAS, Mini-PCs, SBCs (like Raspberry Pi), UPS, and more.
• Wire components: Graph-based representation of physical and logical connections.
• Nested Virtualization: Define Virtual Machines (VMs), Containers, or LXCs directly on compute nodes.
• Real-time Synchronization: The visual state is continuously synchronized with a PostgreSQL database.