An open notebook of handwritten notes with a green pen, on a dark table beside a glass of iced tea

Hands-on AI and homelab reviews

Each review gives the cost, licence, test notes and a verdict. A monthly market post compares model prices; the latest is from 3 November 2026.

Reviews, market posts and homelab notes

Sample entries: these titles and verdicts show the format until the archive moves over. Only the Open WebUI review has its page so far.

AI token market, November 2026

Small models got cheaper again; the top tier held its prices.

Sample entry, page to come

Open WebUI with Ollama, reviewed

Good enough for a small team. Read the licence before you rebrand it.

One mini PC, a dozen services

Proxmox on one box carries the lot; plan the backups first.

Sample entry, page to come

AI token market, October 2026

List prices barely moved. Cached input is where the savings were.

Sample entry, page to come

Coding agents on a real ticket backlog

Useful on small, well-described tickets. I still read every diff.

Sample entry, page to come

Forgejo for a two-person team

Light to run and quick to back up; its Actions runners cover most CI.

Sample entry, page to come

How a review gets written

  1. Install the tool from its own docs

    No vendor demo and no preview account. If the install guide is wrong, that goes in the review.

    Close-up of colourful Rust code on a dark screen
  2. Run the tool on real work

    On my own hardware for self-hosted tools, on a paid plan for the rest, with the bills kept.

    Blue network cables plugged into a rack switch with green link lights
  3. Write up the cost, licence and verdict

    Every review closes on the same facts in the same order, so two reviews read side by side.

    A silver pen lying on a closed dark notebook