Ansible NAS by DaveStephens

Build a full-featured home server or NAS replacement with an Ubuntu box and this playbook.

ansibleansible-playbooknasubuntuubuntu-serverdockerself-hostedhomeservermedia-streaminghomelabhomelab-automationhomelab-setup
Verdict 63/100 health $4.13/mo cheapest, hetzner 3/5 setup difficulty

Self-host Ansible NAS on hetzner CAX11 for $4.13/mo.

Health score
63 /100
6-dim composite
Self-hosts from
$4.13 /mo
hetzner · CAX11
Difficulty
3 /5
External DB / setup
GitHub stars
3.7k
526 forks

About Ansible NAS

From the project's README at github.com/DaveStephens/ansible-nas. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.

[](https://github.com/davestephens/ansible-nas/actions?query=workflow%3ACI) [](https://github.com/davestephens/ansible-nas/actions?query=workflow%3AIntegration) [](https://gitter.im/Ansible-NAS/Chat) [](https://github.com/davestephens/ansible-nas/blob/main/LICENSE) [](https://ko-fi.com/davestephens)

After getting burned by broken FreeNAS updates one too many times, I figured I could do a much better job myself using just a stock Ubuntu install, some clever Ansible config and a bunch of Docker containers. What Ansible-NAS Does

You can configure Ansible-NAS to set up any (or all!) of the applications listed below on your home server.

If you have a spare domain name you can configure applications to be accessible externally to your home LAN too; they'll be configured with a sensible hostname and DNS gets updated a

Health score breakdown

6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.

activity
80
maturity
30
community
78
security
70
sustainability
100
adoption
33

Adoption signals

Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.

SignalValueSource
GitHub stars 3.7k github.com/DaveStephens/ansible-nas
GitHub forks 526 github.com/DaveStephens/ansible-nas

Release & maintenance

Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.

Project age8.7 yearssince Aug 2017
Last commit3 months agoFeb 17, 2026
Funding links1declared by maintainers

Self-hosting cost across providers

Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.

ProviderPlanSpecsMonthly
hetzner CAX11 2c · 4GB · 40GB $4.13 USD Deploy →
vultr VC2 1c · 1GB · 25GB $5 USD Deploy →
linode Nanode 1GB 1c · 1GB · 25GB $5.12 USD Deploy →
digitalocean Basic Regular 1GB 1c · 1GB · 25GB $6 USD Deploy →

Ready to self-host Ansible NAS?

Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.

Data last refreshed May 7, 2026.

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Frequently asked questions

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