u/Ceyax thank you very much for the mention and the recommend.

Our cyber Monday sale allows anyone to convert their whole patch management system for free for as long as their current contract. So yes, still free for ever for the first 100 endpoints (Workstation OR Server) or a great deal to get off other systems to come see what Action1 can do.

You could just set the policies you want direct via the registry, and skip all the policy editors altogether. An excellent laid out catalog of those registry settings here.

https://admx.help/

From there you can use anything form powershell remoting, ssh, or a myriad of patch management solutions, which on the lower count of endpoints in a home lab, would likely come out with a full functional free system. A good collection of those here on g2 for side by side comparison.

Obviously AD/GPO is worth learning, but so is the underlying structure of WHAT it does, so you can build bridges and better understand/support those policy systems as you move into that.