A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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If you are running a non home version of Windows you could install the Hyper-V services on your computer and start with VMs that way.
Another option is VMware Workstation/Fusion now that it is free again, or Virtual Box by Oracle.
That is what I did for a while. A Debian VM with 2 CPUs MD 8Gb of ram to start playing around with Docker before getting a Pi.
You don't mention where you are from so apart from eBay there isn't really much else to go with.
He'd be better off with a bare metal implementation like Proxmox.
Hyper V is bare metal. Hyper V is a type one hypervisor. The hyper v kernel runs under the windows kernel, when you run hyper v, the windoss you interact with is transparently converted into a VM, with all devices passed through to it.
Anyway the tools to manage hyper v aren't anywhere near as mature compared to proxmox and it's a pain when you hit corner cases so I wouldn't recommend it, BUT it is a type 1, highly performant hypervisor.
Another option is VMware Workstation/Fusion now that it is free again, or Virtual Box by Oracle.
Oh, it is again? Thanks for letting me know!
That is what I did for a while. A Debian VM with 2 CPUs MD 8Gb of ram to start playing around with Docker before getting a Pi.
Will try this out, then, thank you for the advice! Since I got my PC on ethernet, but still got a network card with WiFi that I don't really use for anything, I could set it up so the Wifi card acts as part of the VM as a different computer in the network, instead of having to configure the same connection both for my PC and the VM, right?
You don't need to use a dedicated card for networking, assuming you have a PC from the last decade the hardware is smart enough to share the NIC.
I bridge my ethernet NIC between Windows and my Hyper-V VMs and everything talks just fine.
E waste bins or eBay. A Dell D630 will run services just fine if you just install Debian command line, just add some cheap DDR2 memory.
For learning, VMs are fine. Spin up as many as you'd like. Install, duplicate, reinstall, delete at will. I would start there.
Then, while you're learning, set aside since money to get an SBC or mini pc. That will allow you to keep it running as a server continuously. Phones can work for this, but to act as servers you'll probably need to root them.
Computers are way more expensive than they used to be but within reach for most people if you can save up for it.
Check thrift stores, Facebook, eBay, the usual suspects. Watch out for PCs stripped for RAM and other shenanigans, though.
What do you want to practice? Just general sysadmin stuff? Networking? Clustering? Horizontal scaling? All of the above?
Old PCs are just Debian servers waiting to happen. Depending on their specs, you may be able to do VMs or you can utilize container frameworks like Podman, Docker, or LXC to deploy individual applications or application stacks. Or you can just bare metal install anything you want.
Years ago, I bought a batch of 16 Wyse thin clients on eBay for about $15/each. These had 4GB SSDs and 2 GB RAM, so I upgraded about half of them with 64-120GB SSDs (whatever I had lying around) and 8 GB RAM. Thin clients can usually be found pretty inexpensively and are pretty power efficient, but they're not performant workhorses. They're great for practicing networking, VLANs, system orchestration (e.g. Ansible, Cockpit) application clustering and horizontal scaling, diskless workstations, setting up a demo office server and workstations, and even VMs if you're just practicing; they're a little underpowered to run a lot of VMs, but you can certainly run a few small ones just to practice managing them.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| DNS | Domain Name Service/System |
| LXC | Linux Containers |
| SBC | Single-Board Computer |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 22 acronyms.
[Thread #297 for this comm, first seen 16th May 2026, 12:30] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Online classified ads, your neighbour/relative/friends attic, the access road towards the recycling center/landfill, a refurbished PC shop... From my experience the world is filled with old hardware that's plenty good enough, just doesn't run Windows 1X anymore so it becomes e-waste. You can of course also buy a Mini-PC on Amazon or use your existing computer if it has enough RAM to host a virtual machine.
Not a lot you can do with phones unfortunately. You could set them up as basic fileservers using CopyParty or Syncthing. Don't use it for anything critical - these are not backup solutions.
Set up Tailscale to access it outside your network.
I've been told that government auctions canbe a good source for cheap used PCs but I never had much luck there. I suspect that they get snatched up quickly and stripped for parts. Try eBay or Mercari?
I've been told that government auctions canbe a good source for cheap used PCs
Can confirm government surplus auctions or sales are a great source for cheap PCs and that they do get snatched up quickly (guilty!) The only catch is they never come with hard or solid state drives. I'm assuming those just get pulled and destroyed.
Get yourself a tiny computer like this one and go to town. This is actually what my whole "homelab" runs on. lol. I have my own Nvidrome, audiobookshelf, jellyfin, invidious, pihole, own DNS with unbound and some more, all running on this little thing. It runs so well. I don't ever have issues.
I got an old desktop for 30 euros off of Facebook marketplace. If you look long enough, sometimes you find free laptops with broken screens that make for perfect servers.
Not sure where you are located OP but, eBay, CraigsList, Goodwill, local Refurb shops, befriend a local IT person....business are always throwing out decent stuff. Just stay away from enterprise equipment. In my locale there are 'flea-markets', FaceBook Marketplace. @DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world suggested a Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro, and if you do some dilligent searching of Amazon, you can find some good deals on Used or Refurb computers.
This.
I look for corporate desktops that are off-lease or EoL. Big fan of Lenovo M series. 6th/7th gen still have lots of life left in them and plenty of power for most homelab tasks.
Anything much newer than that will consume less power per core (usually) but will cost more up front and probably be more expensive to put upgrades into (i.e. DDR5). Anything much older than that won't be worth the performance per watt. By the time you put a 7th gen through its paces, you'll be ready to upgrade and have a much clearer look at what you want/need.
Right now I've got 3x M710s forming a kubernetes cluster, and another running opnsense only.
Kubernetes was built on top of VMs in proxmox, but I'm thinking I will move them to metal.
I also have what was my PC down in the basement, with proxmox, running a TrueNAS VM and a Bazzite VM for GPU passthrough and Sunshine, but I'm gonna reclaim those guts, put a spare 6th gen with DDR3 and run TrueNAS on metal. Then I'll have my PC back.
Anything much newer than that will consume less power per core (usually) but will cost more up front
I did a little passive research on the Dell OptiPlex 3050 Micro that @DonutsRMeh@lemmy.world recommended. For my locale you could run that 24/7 for about $2.00 USD per month. I like to stay in the DDR3 range of equipment because those are not nearly the same price for units using DDR4 or higher, and as far as performance goes, are still on the green of newer DDR4 & 5 units. Plenty enough computing power to handle a lot of Docker containers, etc.
Yeah the SFFs and uSFFs are great for consuming low power.
I've got a couple m910q's that I bought for htpc purposes but honestly I might be better off putting the thick ones on htpc duty. Just gotta work out some kinks with how they handle suspend when hooked up to a TV.
They've really shot up in price...I bought two for 130 shipped (total) with i5-7500T and 16gb back around last Halloween. I'm seeing singles not specced as well for the same price
The tough thing about uSFF is that they usually don't have any PCIe slots...so if you need a second NIC, or want to upgrade to mGig, you can't, or they have to be over USB 3.
Thrift stores often have old laptops for cheap
Facebook marketplace has real cheap old kit. Good enough to start with. Also look at free cycle and your local thrift store. You never know when you'll find something workable.
I think a good church is great for hobby projects ready to be taken out of the basement
You do have to belong to such a church already though