If you run more than two or three self-hosted apps at home — a media server, a download manager, a network monitor, a file sync tool — you've probably got a browser folder full of bookmarks and no idea which server is even up right now. A homelab dashboard fixes that: it's a single web page, running on your own hardware, that shows every app you host as a clickable tile with a live status light next to it. Homepage and Dashwise both do this job, but they disagree on the most basic design decision — how you're supposed to set the thing up in the first place.
Homepage: the established, YAML-configured favorite
Homepage is the dashboard most homelab guides point you to first, and the numbers explain why: 32,000+ GitHub stars, 200+ contributors, and over 100 ready-made integrations for things like Plex, Sonarr, Docker and Kubernetes that show live data (not just a link) right on the tile. It's completely free, and it proxies API requests through its own server so your API keys never get exposed to the browser — a real security detail a lot of competitors skip.
The catch is right there in the setup: everything is configured by hand-editing YAML files. There's no admin panel where you click add a service — you're in a text editor, indenting carefully, restarting the container to see if it worked. It's also just a dashboard: it doesn't handle login/authentication or act as a reverse proxy, so you're expected to pair it with something else (like a reverse proxy with its own auth) if you want the page password-protected from the outside.
Dashwise: no YAML, built-in login
Dashwise is a newer, smaller project built around the opposite bet: configure everything through a graphical interface, never touch a config file. It also ships something Homepage doesn't handle itself — built-in authentication with OIDC single sign-on, so you can lock the dashboard down without bolting on a separate auth layer. Day-to-day, it adds a Spotlight-style quick search (Ctrl+K) to jump between services, and its widget system is built to be extended rather than fixed to a preset list.
The honest tradeoff: Dashwise is a much younger, smaller-community project than Homepage or Homarr, which means fewer community-made templates and less real-world mileage on complex, multi-server setups. It also runs on PocketBase as its backend — a fine piece of software, but a less common dependency than what most self-hosted tools use, which is one more thing to know if something breaks.
Side by side
| Homepage | Dashwise | |
|---|---|---|
| Configuration | YAML files, hand-edited | Point-and-click GUI |
| Built-in auth | No — pair with a reverse proxy | Yes, with OIDC SSO |
| Integrations | 100+ pre-built, live-data widgets | Modular widget system, smaller library |
| Community size | 32k+ stars, 200+ contributors | Small, newer project |
| Backend dependency | None notable | PocketBase |
| Price | Free, open source (GPL-3.0) | Free, open source |
Pick Homepage if… / Pick Dashwise if…
Pick Homepage if you want the option with the biggest community, the most pre-built integrations, and you don't mind editing a YAML file once and leaving it alone — most homelabbers land here first for a reason. Pick Dashwise if hand-editing config files is genuinely the thing stopping you from setting up a dashboard, or if you specifically want login/SSO built into the dashboard itself instead of configuring a separate auth proxy.
Neither is wrong, and this isn't close to Homepage's league in maturity yet — but for someone who wants a working dashboard in ten minutes without reading YAML syntax docs first, Dashwise's GUI-first approach solves a real annoyance that Homepage still has.