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2025 was a great year for self-hosting with many new containers released. We review the best new containers every month on our top 10 videos. These videos are only made possible by the amazing work on self-host produced and managed by Ethan Shelly. We review Ethan's newsletter every Friday on our liveream.
This video will cover by month some of the best apps we've seen in all of 2025. I'm your host Evan. Let's get started.
From July, we have Compose Toolbox, Media Manager, and Philem. First, let's look at Compose Toolbox. First up is Compose Toolbox. This application has one goal in mind, to assist people in making sure their compose file is valid. On the left, you'll see a code editor to paste your compose, and [music] on the right, a validation tab. The validation tab is very beginner friendly because it lets you know specifically what line has errors in the compose file you've pasted. [music] If I incorrectly indent this volume mount on the right, we can see a validation error. Immediately when I click the show details eye on the top right, it tells me exactly what's going on. There are invalid volume syntax and there's inconsistent indentation both happening on line 10. Since its debut in July, it has been getting moderate updates. Just note I'm running this on the web version, but you can deploy this via Docker Compose file for your local system.
Up next is Media Manager. This application has the goal of combining sonar, radar, seir, and Prowler. Sonar and Radar are not as actively maintained as they once were. So, this has left the door open for other applications to build off where they have left off. During the year, there have been plenty of alternative applications that have tried to combine these aspects of the R Suite, but from my memory, this was the first notable one that came out in the year. It does integrate with the following services and options that I have listed on the screen. Media Manager was released on May 31st and has been receiving consistent updates every month.
Up next is Philem. FileM is a drop-in replacement for Google Drive with much of the same functionality in UI. I can do everything I would normally do on Google Drive. I can use my right-click menu and I get a full context window here and I can do things like upload a sample file to show you guys how this works. From here, I could rightclick my file and I get a variety of options just like I would on Google. I can manage advanced things like permissions with other users. I can set public access shares with custom IDs, passwords, expiration dates, and number of access limits. also allows offline access which then reyncs with the server when the connection comes back online and you can see that indicated by the cloud on the top right.
From the month of August we have dock peak tractor aggregar and boxer. First up is dock peak. Doc is a container which shows you information about other docker containers. It's not a container manager so you can't launch or stop containers from here. It's meant to be used as a way to see some basic information about containers. We have the ability to view some logs by clicking the little log button here. Some things it can do besides display basic information in logs is check for updates and update containers. It can also prune images. You can use the check update button in the top right. If there is an update, you'll get the little yellow arrow here where you get to click the button. It'll automatically update the image for you. The very bottom right, you can prune unused Docker images by clicking the prune images button. For full functionality, you would want a complete container manager, something like Portainer or Komodo. Doc has gotten a bunch of updates from June to November, but has not been updated since then.
Up next is Tractor. Tractor is a comprehensive vehicle management container. It allows you to manage a digital garage where you can add unlimited vehicles and track things like fuel, maintenance, insurance info. I can select a car on the top of the dashboard and look at these tabs to show things like fuel, maintenance, insurance. If I want to make a change for any one of these vehicles, I can go ahead and click the little icons to add things like fuel and maintenance records and insurance. This works for both American and Imperial. In the settings, we can go ahead and change the currency, unit of distance, and unit of volume to their American or European equivalent. Tractor has gotten monthly updates since its August release.
Up next is Aggregar. Aggregar is a Plex collections manager that keeps your home and recommended screens fresh by frequently updating them with collections from various sources. I can configure Aggreg to use one or many collections from a list of sources to modify the Plex screens with recommendations pulled from that source. For example, TMDB. I can grab the trending today source and add it to all libraries and click create collection. And now on my movies and TV show screen, we'll see the TMDB trending today automatically at the top, which I can also move to the bottom or anywhere on this list that I want. Agravar has gotten over a dozen updates since it August release.
Up next is Boxar. Boxar monitors weekly box office charts and seamlessly integrates with media apps. [music] Box Art will pull the weekly box office reports from the previous week and show them every single Wednesday at 11 p.m. When I click the view button, it'll show me the top 10 trending movies in the box office. Boxar syncs automatically in the background and will always keep trending media flowing into your media apps. Boxar had a ton of updates in August and September, but has not been updated since. There are 12 open issues at the time of this recording, five of which are bugs, and the last closed issue was September 15th.
Up next is Sprout Track. Sprout Track is a private application for tracking baby activities, milestones, and development. On the dashboard, I get this lineup by time of all the events that I've entered for the day for my baby. I can enter any event by clicking one of these colorful icons at the top. And the icons also have these very interesting tags. For example, it's been 42 minutes since my baby has woken up. My baby's also not been fed in the last 2 minutes, which is green because I've set it to go to red in the event it's more than 2 hours to alert me. Brow Track has had steady updates for the past 6 months.
From the month of October, we have Nex Explorer, Hug Tainer, [music] IronCalc, and QU. First, let's look at Next Explorer. Next explorer is a web-based file explorer, giving you a graphical user interface for systems which may not have one. You use the environment variables in the compose YAML to pass through as little or as much of the host system as you want. I also get the option to create share links. So, if I wanted to share one of these documents, I can set a share link here. set permissions, passwords, or expiration dates. Next explorer has been steadily updated since September, improving existing features, fixing bugs, as well as adding new features like the terminal tool.
Up next is Tugtainer. Tugainer is an application for automating Docker container updates with the web UI. Consider it kind of like a more up-to-date version of Watchtower. Tugainer has an automated update setup, but you can also manually update your containers or [music] turn on and off updates for individual containers. Tugainer has been getting weekly updates since its release, mainly fixing bugs and also occasionally closing security vulnerabilities.
Up next is Iron Calc. Iron Calc is a spreadsheet engine and set of tools to work with spreadsheets in diverse settings, all from within your web browser. The goal of IronCalc is to give users options besides Google Sheets. When I first open Iron Calc, I can open up a blank workbook or some templates that it has preconfigured. Opening up the mortgage calculator, for example, and creating the workbook, I can see that it gives me a nice layout here of what a mortgage calculator would look like. Iron Calc has seen steady development throughout the past year with noticeable bursts of work in July and a major spike from October through December, reaching nearly 50 commits in a week at its peak.
Up next is QU. QUU is a web interface for Cubit Torrent, but really it's so much more. I get a dashboard here that shows me some overall statistics of what's going on in my cubit instance and I can manage multiple instances right from this one dashboard. When I click my instances in the bar on the left, I can see all my Linux ISOs in the main section and some filters on the left. If I click any one of my Linux ISOs, it'll open up a drawer on the bottom and show me all sorts of tabbed information about this Linux ISO. QU started as a container which was a far superior front end to Cupid than any available skin. However, they have recently expanded to do even more functionality than just a front end for [music] Cubit TTOR. Now, they could also manage things like cross seeds and automations for Linux ISOs. The team who makes QU also maintains another community favorite called Autobur. As far as updates, they've really done an excellent job by pushing weekly releases with new features.
From the month of November, we have Jelly Swarm and Zerobite. First, let's look at Jelly Swarm. Jellm is a reverse proxy that lets you combine multiple Jelly Pin servers into one place. The interface is indeed very straightforward. To add a server, just give it a name, input the URL, and click the add button. You'll see it pop up down here in the server configuration section. Once you have added multiple servers, point your Jellyfin client at the Jelly Swarm server to see all content from all configured servers in one place. Jelly Swarm also makes user management easy through the use of federation. You can create a user across all servers simultaneously if you have admin rights to that server. It's gotten a handful of updates in 2025, but the latest in December was the big feature allowing Jelly Swarm to manage users across all instances.
Next up is Zerobyte. Zerobyte is a backup automation tool that helps you save your data across multiple storage backends. It allows you to do things like set the directory you want to back up from and even has a built-in file explorer, select the backup target from a variety of backend options. It even includes our clone which is built into True Nest, giving you access to 40 plus cloud providers. 5 days ago, they dropped the 21 release with a ton of features and improvements. There have been steady commits over the last few months with a huge spike in the second week of December. This is a well-maintained app with many enhancements cited for the future.
For the month of December, we have Racula and Dochand. First, let's look at Racula. Rackula allows you to plan your rack layout, drag your devices in, and move them around from a menu on the left. There's a variety of all sorts of different things like storage devices, power, KVMs, all this stuff on the left side. For example, to add a 2U patch panel, I can just click and drag it and drop it in to remove it. I highlight it and delete it. This runs completely in your browser and there is a website that hosts it for free if you don't want to self-host it. This app is extremely healthy and well-maintained, getting almost daily commits on GitHub. Even though there are many open issues, only two are labeled as bugs and over 244 have been closed at the time of this filming.
Up next is Dockhand. Dochand leans more towards the Portainer side of Docker management rather than Dockage since it is a ton of visual information as well as functionality. You can see just by the dashboard how much information is given. When I click in my containers, I can see these nice columns with all the resource usage for running containers. I also get all the standard action buttons. One of the ones that I like to point out is the folder icon here for running container. I get a visual file browser of what's going on inside of the container. It has all the other standard tabs like logs and shells. With the stacks, it can't import any existing stacks from my system, but when I create internal stacks, I can edit them using a standard editor. And it does actually save to my stacks directory on my host. This app only got its initial commit on December 28th. Since then, there have been almost daily updates. Out of 56 issues, only eight are bugs and 29 are closed already.
Thank you all for watching a summary of the best new applications of 2025. If you like this video, click the thumbs up button to give it a like. Make sure you subscribe to this channel to get the latest videos about all things self-hosted. Leave a comment below if there were containers you wanted to see make this list or containers you're already using and absolutely love. If you want to have a longer conversation with us, jump on our Discord server. If you want to say thank you, please use the buy me a coffee link in the video description below. As always, stay curious.