What is Heimdall used for?

Heimdall is a self-hosted application dashboard and launcher that organizes links to your web apps, with live stats for supported services. It is a good fit for a start page for a home lab and replacing a long bookmark list.

Is Heimdall open source?

Yes. Heimdall is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at linuxserver/Heimdall and is written mainly in PHP.

Yes. Heimdall is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Heimdall?

Yes. Heimdall can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What are some alternatives to Heimdall?

Similar open-source tools in the Productivity category include Organizr, Glance and Homepage. SaaS products in the same category include Alfred, Bookmarker and Bookmarkjar.

Is Heimdall actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Heimdall was on 9 September 2026, and the latest release is v2.8.3, published on 5 September 2026. The project has 9.3k stars on GitHub.

Heimdall: open-source productivity

About Heimdall

Heimdall is an application dashboard for organizing the web applications you use. It is not limited to applications, since you can add links to any site. It is meant to replace a messy list of bookmarks with a dedicated start page, and it can include a search bar using Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo.

Supported applications come in two kinds. Foundation apps automatically fill in the icon and a default tile color. Enhanced apps connect to an app's API to show live information on the dashboard, such as the queue size and download speed of NZBGet and SABnzbd. Apps are recognized from the title you enter, so typing the first letters of a name such as pfSense suggests matching items.

Heimdall is a PHP application built on Laravel 11 and needs PHP 8.4 with the usual extensions, plus SQLite and zip support. It is published by the LinuxServer organization under the MIT license. Topics in the repository mention media server tools such as Plex, Emby, Sonarr and Radarr, which are common items on home server dashboards.

Key features

Dashboard of tiles for web applications
Auto-filled icons for known apps
Live stats from Enhanced apps via their APIs
Optional search bar with Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo
SQLite-based Laravel application

Good fit for

→A start page for a home lab
→Replacing a long bookmark list

Built with: PHP
Tags: dashboard; start-page; homelab; self-hosted; php; laravel; bookmarks; launcher

Heimdall: questions and answers

What is Heimdall used for?: Heimdall is a self-hosted application dashboard and launcher that organizes links to your web apps, with live stats for supported services. It is a good fit for a start page for a home lab and replacing a long bookmark list.
Is Heimdall open source?: Yes. Heimdall is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at linuxserver/Heimdall and is written mainly in PHP.
Is Heimdall free?: Yes. Heimdall is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Heimdall?: Yes. Heimdall can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What are some alternatives to Heimdall?: Similar open-source tools in the Productivity category include Organizr, Glance and Homepage. SaaS products in the same category include Alfred, Bookmarker and Bookmarkjar.
Is Heimdall actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Heimdall was on 9 September 2026, and the latest release is v2.8.3, published on 5 September 2026. The project has 9.3k stars on GitHub.