There are a lot of reasons not to give them your money. They’re assholes to the maker community and they openly talk shit on a lot of their customer base. That’s beside the point, though, really.
It’s just not a spectacular option for hosting. In order to get a Rpi competitive with even the shittiest laptop from 7 years ago, you’re going to end up spending more than you would spend on a decent laptop from 7 years ago.
If it is a computer that turns on, it will likely function orders of magnitude better than an Rpi and won’t bind you to ARM architecture. My entire hosting setup was pulled out of a recycling pile for free. Install ubuntu/ubuntu server and enjoy yourself.
If you intend on spending any amount of money on this hobby, I cannot express enough how much I recommend against any of that money going toward a Raspberry Pi.
EDIT: A lot of you seem to be reading this as “Raspberry Pis are all nonfunctional” and getting mad about it. Don’t do that.
I almost ordered an Orange Pi5 yesterday. I realized I still have a couple RPi4s around, and I’d just be spending money on something I really don’t need. I’m waiting for a good excuse though, the reviews looked pretty solid. What are your impressions?
Doesn’t come with a power adapter and has weird power requirements. Wouldn’t power up at all with a standard 5V 1A wall plug, needed 5V 4A.
Apart from that it’s been perfectly fine. I wish other OS than the armbian they provide supported this CPU.