Glance Dashboard. One Page Replaced a Dozen Tabs

Feeds, subreddits, weather, server stats and Docker on one self-hosted page. Four Docker steps, and it runs on a spare monitor or a Raspberry Pi.

Apr 20, 2025

A Dozen Tabs Replaced by One Page

My second monitor used to run a dozen tabs and a dozen apps: weather, a subreddit, Hacker News, three YouTube channels, server stats. NewsNow (https://github.com/ourongxing/newsnow) proved the fix first. It pulls many feeds into one page, shown below. It targets Chinese sources and ships Chinese documentation, so most people find the setup hard.

NewsNow's hottest view stacks trending lists from Weibo, Baidu and four more Chinese sources on one screen

NewsNow's source picker groups feeds such as Hacker News, Product Hunt and GitHub under technology

Glance is a self-hosted dashboard that does the same job in English, and it is the tool I actually run. It pulls RSS feeds, subreddits, Hacker News, weather, YouTube channels, market prices, server stats and Docker containers into one page. You pick the widgets you want, arrange them, and build separate pages for work, personal life and tech news. Run it on an old tablet, a Raspberry Pi or a spare monitor. It stays visible with no interaction and puts no real strain on the machine underneath.

Set it up with Docker Compose

The setup takes four steps, and Docker does most of the work. Install Docker first, because every step runs through it.

Create the project directory and download the template files.

mkdir glance && cd glance
curl -SL https://github.com/glanceapp/docker-compose-template/archive/refs/heads/main.tar.gz | tar -xz --strip-components=1

Configure the application.

Edit docker-compose.yml when you need different ports or volumes. Define your pages, columns and widgets in config/glance.yml, which the template names config/home.yml by default. The configuration documentation lists every option.

The glance folder holds assets, config, a .env file and docker-compose.yml before the first start

Start the application.

docker compose up -d

Read the logs when a step fails.

docker compose logs

Docker Desktop shows the glance container running on port 9080, with start, stop and restart buttons

What my dashboard actually shows

My dashboard opens on the clock, the calendar and the weather in one row. Below that sit two subreddits, r/Technology and r/Selfhosted, next to the latest Hacker News front page. A separate column runs the RSS feeds I subscribe to.

The part I use most is the YouTube setup. I built four tabs for channel uploads: Technology, Gaming, Comedy and Watch Later, each replacing the mixed default feed Google gives you. I work through them in order and never open a browser tab to do it.

The Home tab of my Glance dashboard shows a clock, calendar, r/technology posts, Mumbai weather and Hacker News

The Feeds tab pulls eight New York Times RSS sections, from World and Business to Movies and Music

The Watch Later tab shows my saved YouTube videos as one thumbnail grid

The Technology tab shows new uploads from Linus Tech Tips, NeetCodeIO and Fireship, newest first

The Gaming tab tracks uploads from Boss Fight Database, IGN Games and VaatiVidya

Back up your configuration in git

You will edit the YAML files often, and glance.yml is the main one. The option list is long, so read the official configuration docs for widget types, layouts and themes.

Commit your configuration files to a git repository. On any new device or server, clone the repository and run docker compose up, and your setup returns as it was. My own configuration and its history sit here.