My successful path for homelab stuff is to use kubernetes (k3s locally and digital ocean DOKS for cloud resources) with argocd and gitops. Everything I change is via a git commit+push so I can always rollback, and if this machine dies, once I replace/repair the hardware I can pull all backed up content from object storage, install K3s again, reconfigure the authentication for Argocd, and it will repopulate all the running services.
I am absolutely not saying this is the right path for you as I came into nearly all my modern knowledge through my career, but it is a path
My successful path for homelab stuff is to use kubernetes (k3s locally and digital ocean DOKS for cloud resources) with argocd and gitops. Everything I change is via a git commit+push so I can always rollback, and if this machine dies, once I replace/repair the hardware I can pull all backed up content from object storage, install K3s again, reconfigure the authentication for Argocd, and it will repopulate all the running services.
I am absolutely not saying this is the right path for you as I came into nearly all my modern knowledge through my career, but it is a path