Every mini PC, Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi and other board worth buying, with ports, storage, RAM, software support, what each is good for and prices.
23 devices
Ryzen mini PCs
Great fit for: Homelab / Proxmox · Desktop
Sixteen Zen 5 cores, two 10 GbE SFP+ ports, three SSD slots and a PCIe slot in two litres.
Intel N mini PCs
Great fit for: Home Assistant · Media server · Router / firewall
Two Intel 2.5 GbE ports, two M.2 slots and a built-in power supply around an N150: the all-rounder home server.
Intel Core mini PCs
Great fit for: Media server · Homelab / Proxmox · Router / firewall · Desktop
The Intel twin of the MS-A2: 10 GbE SFP+, USB4, three SSD slots and Quick Sync.
Raspberry Pi
Great fit for: Electronics / GPIO
The reference board: two to three times a Pi 4, PCIe for an NVMe SSD and the best software of any SBC.
Mac mini
Great fit for: Desktop
The fastest and most frugal small desktop, but a closed box: no Linux, no Proxmox, no upgrades.
Intel N mini PCs
Great fit for: Home Assistant · Media server · Router / firewall · NAS
A 10 cm cube with six M.2 slots and fast networking: an all-flash NAS that uses a few watts.
Ryzen mini PCs
Great fit for: Homelab / Proxmox · Desktop
Eight Zen 4 cores and Radeon 780M graphics in a quiet box: a real desktop that also runs a homelab.
Intel Core mini PCs
Great fit for: Media server · Homelab / Proxmox · Desktop
The classic NUC, now by ASUS: tidy, well-built, two Thunderbolt 4 ports and Quick Sync with AV1.
Other boards
Great fit for: Home Assistant · Media server · Router / firewall
A silent, fanless N150 board in an aluminium case with two Intel 2.5 GbE ports, two SATA ports and a PCIe slot.
Other boards
Great fit for: Router / firewall
A fanless three-port router board with an eight-core RK3588S, made for OpenWrt.
Orange Pi
Great fit for: No use rated great
The RK3588 board with the most I/O: two 2.5 GbE ports, a full-speed NVMe slot, HDMI in and up to 32 GB.
1-litre business PCs
Great fit for: Media server
The off-lease favourite of homelabbers: six cores, up to 32 GB and a PCIe slot for a network card.
Radxa
Great fit for: Home Assistant · Media server
An Intel N100 PC in Raspberry Pi size, with a Pi-style GPIO header driven by an RP2040.
1-litre business PCs
Great fit for: Media server
Two NVMe slots plus a 2.5" bay make this the storage-friendliest of the renewed 1-litre PCs.
1-litre business PCs
Great fit for: Media server
A cheap, quiet 1-litre PC with six cores and room for 32 GB: an easy start with Proxmox or a family desktop.
Intel N mini PCs
Great fit for: Home Assistant · Media server
A small, cheap N150 box with one 2.5 GbE port and room for a second SSD.
Orange Pi
Great fit for: No use rated great
A full RK3588 in Raspberry Pi size, with LPDDR5, 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 6E.
Radxa
Great fit for: No use rated great
An RK3588 board with one of the best mainline Linux efforts among Arm SBCs.
Raspberry Pi
Great fit for: Electronics / GPIO
A tiny, cheap Wi-Fi board with 512 MB: for sensors, cameras and single-purpose gadgets.
Raspberry Pi
Great fit for: Electronics / GPIO
Still on sale and still enough for Home Assistant or Pi-hole, but a Pi 5 or an N150 box is better value now.
Orange Pi
Great fit for: No use rated great
A cheap board in Pi 4 format with an NVMe slot: slower than a Pi 4, but with proper SSD storage.
Orange Pi
Great fit for: No use rated great
A 5 cm board with Gigabit Ethernet and Wi-Fi for very little money: Pi-hole, VPN or print server.
Other boards
Great fit for: No use rated great
A cheap board in Pi 3 format with mainline Linux support; slow, and only 100 Mbps Ethernet.