I built a home server based on an Intel N100 motherboard a while ago. I’ve put proxmox on it and run my Home Assistant installation, Nextcloud, several other stuff and even my router as an OpenWRT VM!
I chose to go the N100 motherboard route mainly due to the flexibility it offers. But you can just buy a N100 based NUC and you get effectively the same performance and incredible low power consumption.
I would recommend against the Pi 5. It is way underpowered in my opinion. Plus with a x86 system you just have a lot more software compatibility.






And this is why we are going to violate it in every way possible!