How to Build a DevOps Home Lab for Free in 2026

# 1. Install Docker Desktop (Mac/Windows)
# https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/
 
# 2. Install minikube
curl -LO https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases/latest/minikube-linux-amd64
sudo install minikube-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/minikube
 
# Start a 3-node local cluster
minikube start --nodes 3 --cpus 2 --memory 2048
 
# 3. Install kubectl
curl -LO "https://dl.k8s.io/release/$(curl -L -s https://dl.k8s.io/release/stable.txt)/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl"
sudo install kubectl /usr/local/bin/kubectl
 
# 4. Install k9s (beautiful K8s dashboard in terminal)
brew install k9s   # Mac
# or download from: https://github.com/derailed/k9s/releases
 
# 5. Install Helm
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/helm/helm/main/scripts/get-helm-3 | bash

# Install k3s — lightweight K8s for low-resource machines
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -
 
# Check it's running
sudo k3s kubectl get nodes
 
# On your main machine, copy the kubeconfig
scp user@raspberrypi:/etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml ~/.kube/config-homelab
export KUBECONFIG=~/.kube/config-homelab

# Clone any simple app
git clone https://github.com/docker/getting-started-app
cd getting-started-app
 
# Write a Dockerfile
# Build and run
docker build -t my-first-app .
docker run -d -p 3000:3000 my-first-app

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  app:
    build: .
    ports: ["3000:3000"]
    environment:
      DB_HOST: postgres
  postgres:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: secret
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine

# Create deployment + service
kubectl create deployment my-app --image=nginx --replicas=3
kubectl expose deployment my-app --port=80 --type=NodePort
kubectl get svc my-app
minikube service my-app --url

# .github/workflows/ci.yml
name: CI
on: [push]
jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
    - name: Build Docker image
      run: docker build -t my-app:${{ github.sha }} .
    - name: Run tests
      run: docker run --rm my-app:${{ github.sha }} npm test

# Create a free t3.micro EC2 instance
resource "aws_instance" "lab" {
  ami           = "ami-0c55b159cbfafe1f0"
  instance_type = "t3.micro"   # free tier eligible
  tags = { Name = "homelab" }
}

# Install ArgoCD on minikube
kubectl create namespace argocd
kubectl apply -n argocd -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/argoproj/argo-cd/stable/manifests/install.yaml
 
# Create an Application pointing to your GitHub repo
# Push changes → ArgoCD auto-deploys

helm repo add prometheus-community https://prometheus-community.github.io/helm-charts
helm install kube-prometheus-stack prometheus-community/kube-prometheus-stack \
  --namespace monitoring --create-namespace
 
# Access Grafana
kubectl port-forward svc/kube-prometheus-stack-grafana 3000:80 -n monitoring
# Login: admin / prom-operator

helm repo add hashicorp https://helm.releases.hashicorp.com
helm install vault hashicorp/vault -n vault --create-namespace \
  --set server.dev.enabled=true
 
kubectl port-forward svc/vault 8200:8200 -n vault
# VAULT_ADDR=http://localhost:8200 vault status