How I’m Building My Own DevOps Home Lab (and Stopped Bleeding Money on AWS)

That’s when I knew something had to change.

I love building in the cloud, but sometimes it’s essential to have an environment where mistakes don’t come with a financial cost. I’m currently working on more projects than ever, testing pipelines, and deploying models. Each experiment in AWS incurs a cost. Whenever I launch a CI/CD pipeline or set up a Kubernetes cluster, I can almost hear my wallet crying.

But I wasn’t about to stop experimenting.

The Article That Sparked the Idea

I came across a gem of a Medium post by Osomudey Azudonu: “How to Set Up a DevOps Lab on Your Laptop Without Spending a Dime.”

It outlined how to create a multi-node DevOps environment using Vagrant, VirtualBox, and Ansible on your local machine. No cloud. No cost. No drama.

That post lit the fire. I was ready to follow it step by step.

But then… Apple Silicon happened.

The Apple Silicon Curveball

I’m on a MacBook Air M2, and if you’ve ever tried setting up VMs on Apple Silicon, you already know: nothing “just works.”

Most of the tools in the guide weren’t compatible with the M2 chip:

• VirtualBox? Not supported on ARM.

• VMware Fusion? Completely different installer.

• Vagrant? Needed ARM-specific box images.

Nothing worked out of the box. But debugging is my zone.

So I rolled up my sleeves and started troubleshooting, error by error, log by log, with ChatGPT, Google, and sheer stubbornness.

Debugging My Way to a Working Lab

Here’s what I figured out:

• VMware Fusion for Apple Silicon is buried deep on VMware’s site. Took a mini scavenger hunt and four terms-and-conditions checkboxes to download.

• Standard Ubuntu Vagrant boxes? Nope. I had to find ARM64-compatible ones.

• Networking and shared folders? Needed manual tweaks in Fusion settings.

• Vagrant plugins? Had to reinstall them for ARM compatibility.

AI suggested workarounds, but I didn’t want a hack; I wanted a legit, stable setup. I figured out the issues myself without leaning on AI shortcuts.

That’s when I learned one of the biggest lessons of this build: Debugging isn’t a detour. It is the road.

After two long nights? It finally worked.

What I’ve Built So Far

Here’s my current home lab stack:

• Virtualization: Vagrant + VMware Fusion (fully working on Apple Silicon)

• OS: Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS ARM64

• Provisioning: Ansible (coming next)

I can spin up VMs, configure environments, and simulate AWS-style deployments. All local, all free.

What’s Next

Now that the foundation’s solid, I’m adding:

• Containers (Docker & Kubernetes)

• Automation with Terraform + Ansible

• A complete CI/CD pipeline running locally

Once that’s live, I’ll build my first end-to-end DevOps project, from lab to launch.

What I’ve Learned So Far

This experience reminded me that debugging is a form of learning. Those frustrating moments when nothing seems to work? That’s where real growth happens.

Setting up a DevOps lab on an M2 Mac isn’t as easy as just plugging it in, but that challenge adds to its value. I now grasp the reasoning behind each configuration step, not just the methods involved.

Best of all, my AWS bill has been $0 ever since!

Final Thoughts

If you’re diving into DevOps or cloud engineering, build a home lab. You’ll learn faster, break things more safely, and save real money.

Start with Osomudey Azudonu’s article, then tweak it for your setup, especially if you’re on Apple Silicon.

It’ll test your patience, but trust me: the confidence you gain is worth every glitch, error, and reboot.

If you’re building your own DevOps lab or are still haunted by past AWS bills, follow along. Because learning DevOps shouldn’t cost a fortune.