This is the exact opposite of my thinking.
I want my experiments to happen on a remote server I don't care about...not on my home network that I really don't want to compromise/open up by accidentally misconfiguring something.
VPS are cheap - I'm paying like 7 bucks for a 16 gig / 4vcore. (Admittedly a once off deal). 7 bucks to have the blast radius of my networking noobness somewhere else seems like a bargain.
I have a reference point for how my software runs on real enterprise hardware. I know what unexpected things my software does when various hardware/VM/network issues arise, and I’ve learned ways around them and how to write better software that takes these edge cases into consideration.
Are you really full stack if you didn’t reflash the firmware on your RAID controller? When I say I’m full stack, I really mean it. :)
That said, I do keep separate VLANs for my “test” and “prod” environments here at home to keep frustrations at a minimum.
A lot of times you cannot simulate the exact scenario you’re preparing for without actually doing it in a real setup. This is the point of a home lab.