Homarr vs Glance: self-hosted dashboard for your VPS

Why a self-hosted dashboard on your VPS

Concrete use cases

• Browser home page pointing to your own VPS: all your services one click away.
• Real-time status view of your Docker containers without opening Portainer or Dozzle.
• RSS feed aggregation and tech news (Hacker News, Reddit, GitHub releases) on the same screen as your services.
• Centralized access for a team or agency sharing a common VPS.
• Start page for your homelab or development infrastructure.
• Lightweight monitoring without deploying a full Grafana/Prometheus stack.

Homarr: full-featured dashboard with a graphical interface

Deploy Homarr with Docker Compose

1. 01

   Create the directory and Compose file

   On your VPS, create a dedicated directory and a docker-compose.yml file:

   mkdir -p /opt/homarr && cd /opt/homarr

   Content of the docker-compose.yml file:

   services:
     homarr:
       image: ghcr.io/homarr-labs/homarr:latest
       container_name: homarr
       restart: unless-stopped
       volumes:
         - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
         - ./appdata:/appdata
       environment:
         - SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY=your-random-32-char-key
       ports:
         - "7575:7575"

   SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY is required: Homarr encrypts its integration secrets (API tokens, passwords) with this key. Generate one with openssl rand -hex 32.

2. 02

   Generate the encryption key

   Homarr requires a 64-character hexadecimal key:

   openssl rand -hex 32

   Copy the value into SECRET_ENCRYPTION_KEY in the Compose file. Without this variable, the container refuses to start.

3. 03

   Start the container

   docker compose up -d

   Homarr is accessible at http://your-domain.com:7575. On first access, create your administrator account. Initial configuration (tiles, theme, integrations) is done entirely from the web interface.

4. 04

   Configure the Docker integration

   The Docker socket (/var/run/docker.sock) is mounted read-only. In the Homarr interface, go to Settings → Integrations and add a Docker integration pointing to unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Homarr will automatically display the status (running/stopped) of your containers on the associated tiles.

5. 05

   Configure Traefik as reverse proxy

   To expose Homarr over HTTPS, add these labels to your service in the Compose file:

   labels:
     - "traefik.enable=true"
     - "traefik.http.routers.homarr.rule=Host(`dashboard.your-domain.com`)"
     - "traefik.http.routers.homarr.entrypoints=websecure"
     - "traefik.http.routers.homarr.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"
     - "traefik.http.services.homarr.loadbalancer.server.port=7575"

   Remove the ports block if you expose only via Traefik. See the article Deploy with Traefik for the full configuration.

6. 06

   nginx alternative

   If you use nginx, create a vhost /etc/nginx/sites-available/homarr.conf:

   server {
       listen 443 ssl;
       server_name dashboard.your-domain.com;
   
       ssl_certificate     /etc/letsencrypt/live/dashboard.your-domain.com/fullchain.pem;
       ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/dashboard.your-domain.com/privkey.pem;
   
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:7575;
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
       }
   }

   Let's Encrypt certificate via certbot --nginx -d dashboard.your-domain.com.

Glance: a Go binary, a YAML config, no database

Deploy Glance with Docker

1. 07

   Create the directory and configuration file

   mkdir -p /opt/glance && cd /opt/glance

   Create a minimal glance.yml file with a Hacker News widget and a Docker widget:

   server:
     host: 0.0.0.0
     port: 8080
   
   pages:
     - name: Home
       columns:
         - size: full
           widgets:
             - type: hacker-news
               title: Hacker News
   
         - size: small
           widgets:
             - type: docker-containers
               title: Containers
               collapsed-by-default: false

   Glance exposes port 8080 by default.

2. 08

   Launch with Docker Compose

   Create a docker-compose.yml file:

   services:
     glance:
       image: glanceapp/glance:latest
       container_name: glance
       restart: unless-stopped
       volumes:
         - ./glance.yml:/app/glance.yml:ro
         - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro
       ports:
         - "8080:8080"

   Start with:

   docker compose up -d

   Glance is accessible at http://your-domain.com:8080.

3. 09

   Add a weather widget

   The weather widget is one of the simplest to configure — it only requires a location:

   - type: weather
     title: Weather
     location: London, UK
     units: metric
     hour-format: 24h

   Add this block in the widgets section of your chosen column.

4. 10

   Configure the reverse proxy for Glance

   With Traefik, add in your docker-compose.yml:

   labels:
     - "traefik.enable=true"
     - "traefik.http.routers.glance.rule=Host(`glance.your-domain.com`)"
     - "traefik.http.routers.glance.entrypoints=websecure"
     - "traefik.http.routers.glance.tls.certresolver=letsencrypt"
     - "traefik.http.services.glance.loadbalancer.server.port=8080"

   With nginx, same structure as Homarr, replacing the port with 8080.

5. 11

   Hot reload of configuration

   Glance monitors its configuration file and reloads automatically when you modify it. No need to restart the container after each widget addition — docker logs glance -f will display the Config reloaded line after a few seconds.

Homarr vs Glance: comparison table

Scroll the table

Exposing over HTTPS with a reverse proxy

Troubleshooting: common errors

Which tool to choose?