I finally understand why Qubes OS is perfect for Home Assistant—and nothing else comes close

Published Aug 24, 2026, 7:30 AM EDT Zunaid Ali first became interested in technology after using a computer for the first time in 2006. He's been producing how-to content since 2018, reaching thousands of people in the process. As a kid, Zunaid used to read tech tutorials and troubleshooting guides on popular blogs. That made him want to start his own writing career. After the coronavirus pandemic, he finally decided to jump into the tech writing world. Before joining How-To Geek, he had written for HecticGeek, Distroid, and UbuntuPIT, among others. Zunaid first tried Linux when he wanted to learn Web Development in 2021. Due to his inexperience, he messed up his laptop trying to dual-boot Ubuntu with Windows. Frustrated, he went all-in with Linux and removed Windows completely. And that's when he fell in love with it. He's been actively experimenting with Linux since then. After finding his first writing gig on Linux in April 2022, he decided to specialize in it so he could share his knowledge and insights with fellow open-source enthusiasts. He joined How-To Geek in September 2023 and has been writing as a freelance contributor since then. Zunaid is currently pursuing his Bachelor's degree in Information & Communication Technology. When he's not writing, he's reading tech blogs, coding fun projects, or learning about new technologies. Other than Linux, he also has an interest in Android Development and Cybersecurity. He has experience in C/C++, Java, HTML/CSS/JavaScript, and Python. You can find some of his hobby projects on his GitHub. As a Home Assistant user, how do you ensure security? Most advice on the internet talks about the network. Make a VLAN. Enforce a firewall. But the official sources tell a different story. One about what happens once something malicious is already running inside the hub. That's a problem you'd rather want to solve using Qubes OS. Home Assistant trusts everything running on it, and that's the problem The flat permission model you should be aware of Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek Too much flexibility isn't always nice. In fact, Home Assistant's own security documentation admits that every logged-in user is seen as fully trusted. That means there's no separation between accounts. Now, if only every automation running in Home Assistant came from a single source, that wouldn't be a big issue. But the reality is different. A good number of things Home Assistant is useful for come from the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS) and custom integrations, code written by hobbyists. These are not approved like core integrations. If you do some research, you'll find many security disclosures that Home Assistant has published regarding file theft using custom integrations without even logging in. Security audits, including a prominent code review by the GitHub Security Lab, have routinely uncovered serious vulnerabilities in the ecosystem. Researchers have found everything from flaws that allow malicious links to silently trigger internal smart home actions, to critical path-traversal vulnerabilities in the backup system that allow an attacker to write files anywhere on the container's filesystem. The point is, the software you're integrating with the HA ecosystem deserves an extra wall of security to make it safer. Qubes OS treats every piece of software like it's guilty until proven innocent A paradigm shift in how you deal with untrusted sources Credit: Lucas Gouveia/How-To Geek Here's the interesting part about Qubes OS. Instead of running one operating system, it runs several. Each is isolated from the other using the Xen hypervisor. On top of that, there's a lightweight admin layer called dom0 tying everything together. Each of these isolated environments is a "qube." What's fascinating is that each qube can handle different tasks. One might handle your browsing while another handles something riskier. What makes this even more ingenious is that not every qube has direct access to your hardware. There are dedicated networking qubes for routing traffic. So suppose you're running Home Assistant on one qube. It only has access to what you give it. In case something is compromised, it won't affect the other qubes. Credit: Qubes OS ProjectCredit: Qubes OS Project This strict architecture introduces so many features that make Qubes safer and better than other Linux distros for Home Assistant. You can test shady HACS integration in an isolated qube and completely wipe it later. You also have template-based qubes, which allow you to have isolated sections without a full OS installation each time. Moreover, you have control over what Home Assistant can talk to by configuring per-qube firewalls. VLANs and Proxmox get you close, but not all the way there Where network isolation stops and app isolation begins Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek A lot of Home Assistant guides push you toward setting up VLANs. That's commendable. If you can put your IoT devices on separate network segments, then a compromise on one section won't infect your whole network. However, VLANs are only limited to the network layer. In other words, if there is something malicious inside Home Assistant itself, there's nothing you can potentially do with a VLAN. So what fix can you apply? Proxmox is one option. A lot of people like to run Home Assistant inside Proxmox instead of spinning a Docker instance for it. It's pretty useful for virtualizing your homelab. However, consider this. Proxmox is a phenomenal Type-1 hypervisor. Running Home Assistant inside a Proxmox VM isolates it perfectly from your other server applications. But it's built for headless server consolidation. It expects your apps to live statically in a server closet. This is exactly where Qubes OS leaves it in the dust. Qubes isn't a server OS. It’s a desktop operating system built around compartmentalization. It brings hypervisor-level security right to your desktop workflow, making the administration of a complex, untrusted smart home environment much less of a headache. Qubes OS is genuinely more work Home Assistant doesn't make it any easier either Now's the time to come out honestly. This setup isn't everyone's cup of tea. If you ever scrolled through the Qubes or Home Assistant community forums, you'll find people who managed to get Home Assistant running fine inside a qube, but then hit a wall getting it to actually talk to the rest of their network. Qubes also requires good hardware. You'll need IOMMU support and enough RAM to keep several qubes running without problems. USB passthrough for a Zigbee or Z-Wave dongle adds another step, which, unfortunately, a lot of homelabbers coming from simpler setups forget about. If you already have a working setup, you don't have to throw it away for this. However, if it's something about Qubes OS that is holding you back from trying this out, it's worth knowing some of the myths about Qubes OS that scare people off before leaving it untouched. Your smart home deserves better walls Running Home Assistant on Qubes OS isn’t the easiest path, but it is undeniably a safer one. If privacy and security are non-negotiable for you as a homelabber, you could give this setup a try without full commitment. If you think Qubes is not for you, then a dedicated Proxmox VM is still viable.