Methodology

Every page separates three kinds of information, and labels them:

Factual data: specifications from the manufacturers (ports, RAM, drive slots, the processor's video engine…). Checked by an editor; pages still being checked say so.
Derived from the specs: the verdict for each use (great fit, good, limited, not suitable). It comes from the published rules below, applied the same way to every device, never from a gut feeling.
Editorial opinion: our scores, recommendations, pros and cons.

What each device is good for

Each rule reads only facts from the specification table. If a fact changes, the verdict changes with it.

Home Assistant

Not suitable if Home Assistant OS does not install on the device (it can still run in a virtual machine or a container).
Limited with less than 2 GB of RAM or without a supported image.
Great fit with a well-supported Home Assistant OS image, 4 GB of RAM or more, an SSD, eMMC or SATA drive for the system (microSD cards wear out) and low power (a board, or a processor of 15 W or less).
Good otherwise.

Plex and Jellyfin media server

Great fit: Intel Quick Sync with hardware encoding of H.264 and HEVC, the best-supported option in both apps.
Good: hardware H.264 and HEVC encoding by AMD, Apple or Rockchip (Rockchip works in Jellyfin, not Plex), or no encoder but 12 or more x86 threads for software transcoding.
Limited: H.264-only encoding, or no encoder (direct play only).
Without hardware HEVC 10-bit decoding a great fit drops to good: HDR files are hard work.

Homelab: Proxmox, VMs and Docker

Limited on Arm processors (Docker works, Proxmox VE does not) and on machines without Proxmox support.
Great fit: 32 GB of RAM or more possible and 8 threads or more.
Good: 16 GB or more. Limited below that.
RAM that is soldered counts as it ships; SO-DIMM slots count at their maximum.

Router and firewall

Not suitable without a wired port, or without OPNsense, pfSense or OpenWrt for it.
Limited with one port: only as a "router on a stick" with VLANs and a managed switch.
Great fit: two ports or more, 2.5 GbE or faster, excellent OPNsense/pfSense/OpenWrt support and, on x86, no Realtek controllers (they need an extra driver on OPNsense and pfSense).
Good: two ports or more with good support otherwise.

NAS and backups

Great fit: four internal drive slots or more (M.2 and SATA) and 2.5 GbE or faster.
Good: two slots or more. Limited: one slot, or USB drives only.

Desktop

Great fit: 8 threads or more and 16 GB of RAM possible, with Windows 11 fully supported, and every Mac mini.
Good: 8 GB or more. Limited: Arm boards with a Linux desktop and 4 GB or more; less than that is not suitable.

Electronics and GPIO

Great fit: a Raspberry Pi with its 40-pin header. Good: any other board with a GPIO header. Not suitable: no header.

Measured values

We only publish measured figures (power at idle and under load, Geekbench) with their source, or when we measured them ourselves, with the conditions. If a page has none, it says so.

Prices

Launch price: the manufacturer's price at release.
Typical price: a price we saw on the date shown, at the manufacturer's store unless noted. In 2026 the shortage of memory chips has pushed many prices far above launch, so these are references, not live prices.
Live prices from retailers appear only if they were updated in the last 24 hours, with the date and time.

Scores and recommendations

Scores from 0 to 10 are our opinion and weigh performance, ports and expansion, efficiency (power, noise and size), software support and value. Recommendations are never affected by affiliate commissions: see the affiliate disclosure.

Corrections

Products change often. If you find a mistake, tell us and we will fix it and update the review date.