The cheapest VPS I rent today costs $60/year: that's 1GB of RAM and shared access to 1 fast CPU core. Fast storage, fast networking.
Vulnerable to #meltdown, #spectre, #rowhammer, VPS provider compromise.
Last month I spent $48 on an Android set-top box. Have root, Debian. That's 4 mediocre dedicated CPU cores, 1GB of RAM, shitty storage, slow networking. Vulnerable to home intruders.
Which is better will depend on the use-case... but hardware-base privacy and security needn't be expensive.
@HerraBRE £86.40/year (inc VAT) for a dedicated Pi3. 1TB/month. IPv6 only, though. But much faster networking, I imagine.
@edavies Yes, leasing dedicated-but-modest hardware is a great compromise for small servers.
No IPv4 will be a show-stopper for many, but there are alternatives without that restriction.
@HerraBRE Somewhat beside the point but those “IPv6-only” RPis actually have IPv4 for HTTP and HTTPS via a proxy (and you can SSH in over 4). See https://blog.mythic-beasts.com/2017/03/02/hosting-a-website-on-a-raspberry-pi-with-ipv6-and-ssl-part-1/ “Host your own domain name”.