I've been homelabbing for over five years at this point, and it's safe to say I've run hundreds of Docker containers over the years.However, there are five stand-out containers in my homelab that I've simply never had to repair.Plex It's my media center of choice Close I'm a huge Plex advocate.
I've tried Jellyfin in the past, but it just doesn't click with me like Plex does.Plex was the very first container I launched in my homelab back in January 2021, and I have been actively using Plex for over a decade at this point in some way, shape, or form.For me, Plex is the heart of my homelab.
Without it, I wouldn't be writing about homelabbing content today.But, it's also one of the most stable apps in my homelab.I have never had an issue with it in all my years of running it.
It just does what it needs to and doesn't complain.Any issues I've had have always been self-inflicted, like running it in a virtual machine and trying to pass through my integrated graphics from Proxmox to Plex—that was a nightmare, but not because of any fault with the Plex container.If I had to name my most reliable container in my homelab, it would definitely be Plex.
Nginx Proxy Manager I couldn't run my homelab without it Nginx Proxy Manager, or NPM as it's also called, is right up there with Plex in its reliability.I prefer to use reverse proxies for my homelab's external access over Cloudflare Tunnels mainly because it's what I started with and what I know well.With NPM, I can add a new self-hosted reverse proxy in about 10 seconds because I'm so well-versed at it at this point.
I have over two dozen reverse proxies running through it, and it's really never given me any problems.The few times I have had a problem, it typically had to do with something else on the network, and not NPM itself.NPM has been rock-steady for me and I've never had to really repair anything about it, outside of fixing a few Let's Encrypt certificates that got corrupted during a server move one time.
Audiobookshelf This audiobook server has been rock-solid On this list, Audiobookshelf is one of the newer containers in my homelab, but it has become one of the most reliable containers in my homelab.If you've never heard of Audiobookshelf, it's an open-source Audible replacement, basically.It doesn't actually handle sourcing audiobooks like Audible does, but it handles the playback side of things.
I left Audible about a year and a half ago for Audiobookshelf and haven't looked back.Like Plex, Audiobookshelf simply runs in the background and handles everything that I need it to without any fuss.I honestly haven't had a single problem with Audiobookshelf, which is pretty crazy considering it has over a dozen users on it and two separate libraries.
Any problems that I've ever had were from third-party mobile apps, making the service itself something I've never had to fuss with.Tautulli It runs so smoothly I forget it's there most of the time Alongside Plex, I've been running Tautulli since the beginning of my homelab journey.It's a companion app to Plex and basically keeps a log of what was watched, when it was watched, who watched it, and what's being watched right now.
Tautulli does a lot more than just that, but that's mainly what I use it for.I have never once had to mess with Tautulli after setting it up.It's just a reliable container that sits back and collects information for me.
In fact, I had forgotten how long I have had Tautulli running because I rarely think about it.A few months ago, I needed to downsize my Plex server's catalog to save some space, and Tautulli started surfacing data from five or more years ago.It was impressive to me, and a testament to how reliable this container has been in my homelab.
Speedtest-Tracker There when I need it, running when I'm not thinking about it Speedtest-Tracker is a container that I honestly don't think about often.I rarely check it, but I know that it runs reliably and is there when I need it.When would I need it? If I'm ever noticing slower networking speeds or other network-related issues, I can check Speedtest-Tracker to see what it is showing historically.
Is this a one-off problem, or is my networking speed slower around the same time every day? Speedtest-Tracker just sits there, silently collecting data for me without me having to think about it at all.The best Docker containers are the ones you sometimes forget are even there I have plenty of Docker containers that I'm constantly messing with for one reason or another.Those containers are the ones that cause me the most headache.
The best Docker containers in my homelab are the ones that I hardly ever think about, and I really think that's how every homelab should be.
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