August 30, 2025
FreeIPA: The Untamed Titan of Enterprise Identity
Introduction
While Keycloak and FusionAuth focus on the web, FreeIPA operates on a different level. It’s not just an authentication server. It’s an integrated solution for identity management and security policies in UNIX/Linux environments. It’s not designed for quick web app integration but for building centralized access control at an enterprise scale. If your infrastructure consists of many Linux servers, this tool is your ally.
August 29, 2025
FusionAuth: Challenging the Giants with an API Focus
Introduction
While Keycloak may feel like a heavyweight titan built for the enterprise world, FusionAuth enters the arena with a much more developer-friendly agenda. This service positions itself as a solution built by developers for developers. It promises to be simple, fast, and most importantly, manageable through a clean, well-structured API. Sounds like a relief after wrestling with complex documentation.
The Big Promise
The core message of FusionAuth is “less configuration, more code.” It promises to save you from wrestling with dozens of XML files and bulky UIs. Instead, you should be able to integrate authentication in just a few hours using only API calls. Its arsenal includes:
August 28, 2025
Keycloak: Open Source and Big Ambitions
Introduction
In a world where more and more services outsource user management, Keycloak offers a different path. This project is not just a set of login APIs. It is a full-fledged, self-sufficient authentication server that promises to relieve you from headaches with user management, protocols, and security. At the same time, it remains open source. Sounds like utopia, but let’s take a closer look.
August 23, 2025
When Control Matters Most
Services like Tailscale and NetBird are convenient, but they rely on a third-party control server responsible for authentication, key distribution, and route exchange. For those who, for security or privacy reasons, don’t want to entrust this function to anyone, there are two paths: Headscale and “pure” WireGuard.
Headscale: Your Own Tailscale
Headscale is a fully open-source implementation of Tailscale’s control server. It allows you to deploy your own Tailscale alternative on a VPS or server while still using the official Tailscale clients.
August 10, 2025
What is Xen?
Xen is a powerful and flexible Type 1 open-source hypervisor that runs directly on server hardware, delivering high performance. Its unique architecture, based on the concept of paravirtualization, became the foundation for many major cloud platforms, including the early versions of Amazon Web Services (AWS). Xen is known for its performance, security, and ability to flexibly manage resources, making it a popular choice for building scalable and fault-tolerant environments.
August 9, 2025
What is QEMU?
QEMU (Quick Emulator) is a multifunctional open-source project that acts both as an emulator and a virtualizer, making it a unique tool in the virtualization world. Unlike other hypervisors, QEMU not only runs virtual machines but can also emulate a processor and other hardware components. This dual nature allows it to run operating systems and applications designed for one architecture on a machine with another (for example, running an ARM system on an x86 server).
August 8, 2025
What is KVM?
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a virtualization technology built directly into the Linux kernel. KVM transforms the Linux kernel into a Type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal), allowing multiple virtual machines to run while leveraging hardware virtualization features of the CPU (Intel VT-x and AMD-V). KVM serves as a core component for many modern cloud platforms, including OpenStack and Red Hat OpenShift.
As part of Linux, KVM is a fully open-source solution, giving developers and system administrators enormous freedom and control over their infrastructure with zero licensing fees.
August 5, 2025
What is Proxmox VE?
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is a powerful and flexible open-source virtualization platform that allows you to manage virtual machines and containers through a single web interface. Proxmox VE is based on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system and uses the KVM hypervisor for full virtualization and LXC for lightweight containerization. Its key advantage is versatility and ease of management, making it a popular choice for both home labs and small to medium-sized businesses.
July 25, 2025
n8n + Appwrite: An Open-Source Firebase Alternative for Self-Hosting
We’ve already explored Supabase and Firebase — now it’s time to look at Appwrite, a powerful and fully open-source BaaS platform designed for self-hosting and complete data control.
If you want to build a backend on your own infrastructure, Appwrite can be the perfect partner in combination with n8n.
What Is Appwrite?
Appwrite is a full-featured Backend as a Service (BaaS) platform with open-source code. It provides REST APIs for most features a modern application needs:
July 20, 2025
Graylog: A Flexible and User-Friendly Log Management Solution
We’ve already covered ELK Stack and OpenSearch — powerful logging tools with scalable architectures. Now let’s take a look at Graylog — a dedicated log management platform offering convenience, powerful processing, and flexible alerting.
What Is Graylog and How Does It Work?
Graylog is a centralized log management system designed for ease of use and rich capabilities. Unlike the ELK Stack, Graylog was built from the ground up as a unified platform.
July 19, 2025
We’ve explored the ELK Stack, its power — and, unfortunately, its licensing changes. These changes sparked debate within the open-source community and led to the creation of a worthy alternative — OpenSearch.
OpenSearch is a fully open-source fork of the last open versions of Elasticsearch and Kibana, released under the Apache 2.0 license. The project was initiated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2021 and has since evolved as an independent open-source initiative under the OpenSearch Project.
July 18, 2025
ELK Stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana): The Classic Stack for Log Collection and Analysis
After establishing that centralized logging is not just a convenience but a necessity, it’s time to dive into specific tools. Let’s start with one of the most well-known and widely adopted solutions in the logging world — the ELK Stack.
The ELK Stack is a set of three open-source components developed by Elastic. It provides a powerful, flexible, and scalable solution for log collection, processing, storage, search, and visualization.
July 16, 2025
In our series on monitoring systems, we’ve reviewed Munin, Prometheus with Grafana, and Zabbix. Now it’s time to talk about a solution that addresses one of the main pain points of Prometheus users — long-term, scalable, and efficient time-series storage. Meet VictoriaMetrics, a high-performance and cost-effective TSDB (time-series database) that perfectly complements the Prometheus ecosystem when paired with Grafana for visualization.
What Is VictoriaMetrics and Why Do You Need It?
Prometheus handles real-time monitoring and storage well, but its built-in TSDB isn’t designed for long-term retention or scaling to terabytes or petabytes of data. That’s where VictoriaMetrics comes in.
July 15, 2025
We’ve already looked at Munin for basic insights and Prometheus + Grafana for cloud environments. Now let’s turn to Zabbix — a powerful, versatile, and scalable monitoring system that offers a comprehensive out-of-the-box solution for medium and large infrastructures. Zabbix is often chosen by organizations needing centralized monitoring, flexible alerting, and a wide range of data collection methods.
What Is Zabbix and How Does It Work?
Zabbix is a mature open-source monitoring system designed to track the state and performance of various IT components: servers, virtual machines, network devices, databases, web services, and applications.
July 13, 2025
After our introductory journey into the world of monitoring, it’s time to explore specific tools. Let’s start with one of the oldest yet still relevant solutions for those who value simplicity and clarity — Munin.
Munin is a lightweight and intuitive monitoring system specializing in collecting and graphically presenting system data. If you need a quick way to get a general view of your servers’ health without diving deep into complex configurations, Munin might be a great place to start.
July 6, 2025
Introduction to Hestia Control Panel
If you’re looking for a powerful, modern, and completely free control panel for your VPS or dedicated server, Hestia Control Panel (HestiaCP) is one of the best options available. HestiaCP is a fork of the once-popular but now inactive VestaCP and is actively developed by the community. It offers an excellent feature set focused on performance and security. It’s a perfect fit for individual developers, freelancers, small businesses, and anyone who wants full control over their server without extra costs.
