Raspberry Pis are iconic devices among home labbers, self-hosting enthusiasts, and tinkerers alike. While they can be used for self-hosting services, I’ve stopped using them for that purpose only completely and moved my projects to a mini PC instead. Here’s why.
What is a Raspberry Pi good for?
The Raspberry Pi was originally developed as a tinker’s board, which is why they all feature a ton of general purpose in-out (GPIO) pins. They’re to connect to motors, sensors, and pretty much any kind of other peripheral or hardware component that you may want.
That makes them truly fantastic if you need to build something that requires both software and hardware, but you don’t want to go through the trouble of developing your own embedded system from the ground up.
Additionally, the wide range of Raspberry Pis, from Picos, which are low-power devices, to the Raspberry Pi 5, which is basically a mini-PC, means you can find a Pi that would work for almost anything you wanted to build.
7 Raspberry Pi Projects That You Can Do In 1 Hour
Fun projects can be fast too.
The problem with Raspberry PIs for self-hosting
Despite the fact that Raspberry Pis are fantastic all-around, even the most powerful members of the lineup get trounced in benchmarks by comparably-priced mini PCs.
That isn’t to say that Pis bad—they’re not. They’re just designed for a different purpose.
Arm compatibility lags behind x86-64
One of the biggest and earliest issues I ran into using Raspberry Pis for self-hosting is the lack of support for Arm processors. Despite the rise in popularity of Arm in recent years, a large number of self-hosted applications still don’t support it.
That is especially the case for smaller projects that are maintained by small teams of volunteers or even individuals. Sometimes maintaining support for two different architectures is too much, or porting it in the first place is too much to ask.
It can also be a problem if you’re hosting legacy software. Often times, these programs haven’t seen active development in years, and likely never will again. This is a problem I run into frequently when I try to host game servers on my Raspberry Pi.
The Pi processors are a bit underpowered
The Raspberry Pi 5 features a Broadcom BCM2712, which is a quad-core processor, and has up to 16GB of RAM on the most expensive model.
If you’re looking to build some kind of embedded project that needs a “brain,” or something ultra-portable, those specs are pretty hefty. However, if you’re trying to self-host an entire miniature homelab, it isn’t your best option.
You can get mini PCs that feature Intel’s N150 CPU for around the same price that will run circles around the Pi 5 all day long. As an added bonus, these mini PCs often feature a larger maximum amount of RAM and have better hardware transcoding support if you want to run a media server on your mini PC.
Additionally, the N150 (and better CPUs) support DDR5, which is notably faster than the DDR4 featured on the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 5.
Using MicroSD card and USB drives for boot drives isn’t ideal
Though the Pi 5 added native support for NVMe storage with an M.2 slot, most Raspberry Pi models out there today are still limited to booting off of a microSD card or a USB drive.
Neither microSD cards or USB drives are designed with high-frequency, long-term read-write in mind. That means they’re just not as reliable when they’re put under the kind of prolonged heavy use that the boot drive of a dedicated self-hosting PC sees when compared to their solid-state drive cousins.
5 Terrible Uses for Micro SD Cards
Convenient? Yes. Trustworthy? Not on your life!
None of these criticisms are to say that Raspberry Pis are bad, that the Pi 5 is bad, or that you should never use one for self-hosting. If you have one around, and you want to run something like a Pihole, have at it—it’ll work well. If you don’t have anything else and you’re just looking to try it out, definitely go for it. You certainly won’t regret your experience.
However, if you’re going to throw down $120 dollars for a 16GB Raspberry Pi 5, then more for storage, a power supply, and a case with the intention of self-hosting a whole bunch of services at home, you really need to look at introductory mini PCs first. They’ll probably provide a better bang for your buck.
- CPU
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Celeron FCBGA1264 3.6GHz
- Graphics
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Integrated Intel Graphics 24EUs 1000MHz
- Memory
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16 GB DDR4
- Storage
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500GB
- Operating System
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Windows 11 Home
- Dimension
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4.52 x 4 x 1.54 inches
The Beelink Mini S13 Pro desktop PC is a ultra-compact computer powered by the Intel N150 processor. Shipping with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 500GB SSD, this micro desktop is perfect for a variety of workloads. From running simple server programs to replacing your old PC, the Beelink S13 Pro is up to the task.
