Honestly, I just didn't do much research before installing Umbrel. Just used it because "it's the one everyone else is using."

Start9 is what I would have gone with if I looked at the options in the first place. Far more power user focused. Encourages you to use the command line and SSH, much more customisable, just all round more my kind of speed.

Plus it's fully FOSS whereas Umbrel isn't.

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Thanks for your insight! That’ll be a task to ✅ on the horizon so starting to do a little research 🧐🧡🤙

If you want something that's user friendly and "just works" without having to think about the technical details, Umbrel is a fine choice.

If like me you prefer to know exactly how everything works, have the freedom to tweak it, like using the terminal, etc... Start9 is the best option hands down.

Or do it all yourself - https://raspibolt.org/

You can also run Start9 and Umbrel on a Pi. And there's other node projects specifically designed for the Pi too.

I do have a spare Pi 4 so I've been thinking of giving it a go just to compare performance vs running a node on my Asus mini PC which is what I'm doing now.

Interesting idea 💡