IceWhale Launches Community Event for Self-Hosting Fans With ZimaBoard Prizes
IceWhale is bringing the self-hosting community together with a new campaign designed for makers, home lab users, privacy enthusiasts, and anyone curious about running their own services. The event focuses on sharing real experiences, practical lessons, and creative setups, giving participants a chance to learn from one another while also competing for a range of hardware and software prizes.
The campaign is supported by several well-known partners in the self-hosting space, including OpenClaw, PhotoPrism, AdGuard, Karakeep, Blinko, and Emby. Together, they are helping create an event that is not only about giveaways, but also about building a stronger knowledge-sharing community around home servers, personal cloud systems, media libraries, privacy tools, and do-it-yourself tech projects.
Participants are invited to join the event through the dedicated campaign page, which directs users to the related discussion thread on Reddit’s r/minilab community. Once there, users can post about their self-hosting journey, including what worked, what failed, what they learned, and what advice they would give to others.
The event is open to everyone, whether they are experienced home lab builders or complete beginners setting up their first server. IceWhale is encouraging users to share authentic stories, useful guides, creative ideas, troubleshooting tips, and personal experiences that can help others improve their own setups.
Winners will be selected with help from the moderators of the Reddit thread. According to IceWhale, five community members will be chosen based on authenticity, usefulness, creativity, and the overall value their contribution brings to other users.
The top prize includes a ZimaBoard 2 1664, an AdGuard Ad Blocker Lifetime Family license, PhotoPrism Plus Lifetime, and one year of Emby Premiere. The second-place winner will receive a similar software bundle, paired with a ZimaBoard 2 832. Third place will receive the same app package along with a ZimaBlade 7700.
IceWhale is also offering extra rewards beyond the main prizes. The first 100 comments will be eligible for smaller prizes, and several additional lucky giveaways are planned throughout the campaign.
For users interested in self-hosting, home labs, private cloud storage, media servers, network security, or open-source tools, this event offers a chance to connect with like-minded builders and discover practical ideas from the community. It is also a good opportunity for newcomers to learn from real-world examples instead of relying only on tutorials or product pages.
By encouraging users to share both successes and mistakes, IceWhale’s campaign highlights one of the most valuable parts of the self-hosting world: learning together. Whether someone is running a compact home server, experimenting with ad blocking and media streaming, or building a full personal cloud setup, their experience could help another user take the next step.
