Install Home Assistant on your own PC or server

Have you got an old PC, mini PC, or self-built server lying around? You can run Home Assistant on it just fine, often faster than on a Raspberry Pi. There are four common ways. Below we explain them, so you can choose what fits your hardware.

Which installation method is right for you?

Home Assistant OS on the entire machine: the easiest route with all add-ons. The machine is then exclusively for Home Assistant.
Home Assistant OS in a virtual machine (Proxmox, VirtualBox, VMware): ideal if your server needs to do more. You keep all add-ons.
Home Assistant Container (Docker): fits into an existing Docker environment, but has no add-ons. You then run those yourself as separate containers.
Older methods like Core and Supervised are discouraged or no longer supported by the project. Don’t choose them for a new installation.

Method 1: Home Assistant OS on a dedicated PC

Your machine must be 64-bit x86 with UEFI boot support, at least 2 GB RAM and 32 GB storage.

Download the Generic x86-64 image (.img.xz) from the official installation page on home-assistant.io.
Connect the target SSD (or disk) with a USB adapter to another computer and write the image to it with balenaEtcher. There is no installer: the image itself is the system.
Put the disk in the PC, turn off Secure Boot in the BIOS and boot from that disk.
After a few minutes, open http://homeassistant.local:8123 and complete the onboarding.

Method 2: Home Assistant OS in Proxmox

Create a VM with the following commands on the Proxmox host. First download the .qcow2.xz file (KVM/Proxmox) from home-assistant.io and extract it. Adjust the VM number, storage name and file name.

qm create 200 --name haos --ostype l26 --machine q35 --bios ovmf \
  --cores 2 --memory 4096 --net0 virtio,bridge=vmbr0 \
  --scsihw virtio-scsi-pci --agent enabled=1 \
  --efidisk0 local-lvm:1,efitype=4m,pre-enrolled-keys=0
qm disk import 200 haos_ova-XX.X.qcow2 local-lvm
qm config 200   # find the line "unused0"
qm set 200 --scsi0 local-lvm:vm-200-disk-1 --boot order=scsi0
qm start 200

Important: UEFI (OVMF) with pre-enrolled-keys=0, otherwise the VM won’t boot due to Secure Boot. If you want to pass through USB dongles (Zigbee), add them as a USB device to the VM.

Method 3: Home Assistant Container with Docker

Handy if you already have a Docker server. Create a folder with a compose.yaml:

services:
  homeassistant:
    container_name: homeassistant
    image: ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable
    volumes:
      - ./config:/config
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    restart: unless-stopped
    privileged: true
    network_mode: host

Start it with docker compose up -d and then open port 8123 on the IP address of your server. network_mode: host is necessary so Home Assistant can discover devices on your network.

Tips for a dedicated PC or server

A mini PC with an Intel N100 uses only a few watts and is much faster than a Pi.
Enable Wake-on-power or “restore after power failure” in the BIOS, so everything comes back automatically.
Use a static IP address or DHCP reservation.
Make a backup before every major update, and also a snapshot for a VM.
Don’t run Home Assistant on a disk with unknown health: check it first with SMART.