Networking
Home network upgrades, 10GbE guides, firewall selection, and budget gear picks. From basic switches to full rack-worthy setups.
Networking guides
Home network upgrades for people who want their bandwidth to match their use case, not their fantasy. Coverage spans 1G to 10G to 25G, with budget tiers and an answer to “do you actually need this?” at each step.
About this section
Articles here cite throughput numbers from a 2024–2025 home test bench (most of that gear is now retired — see Colophon) plus published third-party measurements with named sources.
Speed Tier Decisions
DNS & Filtering
AdGuard Home + Local DNS on Proxmox (2026 Setup Guide)
AdGuard Home in an unprivileged Debian 13 LXC on Proxmox VE 9.2: port 53 with no config edits, *.lan rewrites, DHCP, optional Unbound, and a check table.
TutorialWireGuard Self-Hosted VPN on Proxmox (2026 Setup Guide)
Run your own WireGuard VPN in a Proxmox LXC: server setup, phone and laptop client configs, split vs full tunnel, and a comparison to Tailscale.
Firewall & Routing
OPNsense on a Mini PC: Firewall Router Setup Guide (2026)
Replace your ISP router with OPNsense on a cheap mini PC: install, set up WAN/LAN, DHCP and DNS, enable IDS/IPS with Suricata, and connect your homelab.
TutorialVLANs for the Homelab: Network Segmentation Guide (2026)
How to set up VLANs in your homelab: isolate IoT, separate a guest network, add a management VLAN. Covers OPNsense, MikroTik, and Proxmox VLAN-aware bridges.
Budget Gear
More from this section
Port Forwarding: The Four Things That Must All Be True
What a router port forward actually does, the four conditions that must all hold before one can work, and why IPv6 needs a pinhole on a different address.
Cat6 vs Cat6A: Decide It by Run Length, Not Speed (2026)
Cat6 vs Cat6A by the numbers that matter: 10GBASE-T reach (Fluke's TSB-155 quote), bundling, and the $80 per 1,000 ft price gap on 2026-09-12. Plus what I run.
UniFi vs an OPNsense Build: The IDS/IPS Ceiling
I have run a UniFi gateway and an OPNsense build. Ubiquiti publishes an inspection ceiling per gateway, and it decides the purchase more than the WAN port.
10GbE at Home: The Bottleneck Is Almost Never the Network
Fan noise, DAC versus fiber, and the thing that actually caps a 10GbE link at home: storage, or SMB on one CPU core. Plus why ConnectX-3 is finished.
Best Wi-Fi 7 Routers (2026): 3 Picks That Make Sense
Three Wi-Fi 7 routers ranked by 6GHz access, multi-gig ports, radio layout, and live price: the best value, wired-first, and flagship picks.
SSH Port Forwarding: -L, -R, -D and Why Your Reverse Tunnel Only Works Locally (2026)
Local, remote and dynamic SSH forwarding, ProxyJump, and the GatewayPorts default that silently rebinds your reverse tunnel to loopback without telling you.
Headscale: Self-Hosting the Tailscale Control Server (2026)
Headscale needs a reachable host and HTTPS. Reuse your server and hostname or choose off-site hosting for resilience; most homelabs can keep free Tailscale.
Tailscale vs Cloudflare Tunnel for Homelab (2026)
Tailscale vs Cloudflare Tunnel compared for homelab remote access: who decrypts your traffic, protocol coverage, client needs, CGNAT, and the run-both split.
ZeroTier vs Tailscale (2026): Layer 2 Switch or Plug-and-Play Mesh?
ZeroTier vs Tailscale in 2026: do you need a Layer 2 virtual switch or the simplest secure remote access? Free tiers, self-hosting, speed, licensing.
NetBird vs Tailscale (2026): The Self-Hosted Mesh VPN Question
NetBird vs Tailscale in 2026, decided on the question that matters: do you want to own the control plane? Homelab cost, policy, and speed tradeoffs.
Tailscale vs WireGuard (2026): Which One Should You Actually Run?
Tailscale vs WireGuard in 2026, decided on the question that matters: can you port-forward? Homelab tradeoffs on CGNAT, setup, speed, and control.
OPNsense vs pfSense (2026): Which Firewall Should You Actually Run?
OPNsense vs pfSense in 2026 on what matters: licensing, UI, plugins, security cadence, and real homelab bench numbers. A focused pick, not a spec dump.