Once I figure out how to fit them on my shelf, I will probably pick up at least one Raspberry Pi 4.

I use two older ones so far for:

• Pi-hole server (DNS/ad-blocking)
• Homebridge server (to control my Nest thermostat via Sirit & HomeKit)

I could use one or more newer, faster Pis for:

• A VPN server
• A self-hosted RSS back-end for Reeder (accessible via the VPN)
• A download server that connects to my NAS (I used to use a Raspberry Pi for this, but it was really, really slow)

I could, of course, replace all of these single-purpose servers with a single Intel box running virtual machines. I have not found such a thing at a good price, or that runs silently. My NAS box, currently running FreeNAS, is off limits right now when it comes to adding Internet-facing services. It is also too old and under-resourced to dedicate chunks of its RAM to virtual machines.