I’ve used lots of different boards. The Radxa Rock 3c is cheap and has decent performance, but the official OS support is a bit old. The Libre Computer boards are also good and have Armbian support. Libre Computer is releasing a couple more this year too. BananaPi has good options that aren’t expensive, like the BananaPi M5. Friendly Elec has some boards like the NanoPi R2C and R5C that aren’t pricey and have Armbian support. Any one of these boards are fine for a small home lab. Just boot Armbian, install Docker, and add your containers.
I'm current using a refurbished business Lenovo mini PC. I've seen a similar model with i7 and 16GB of RAM for about $170 on Amazon. There are also mini PC's using NXXX model Intel CPU's with a TDP of 10w, but I don't think you can upgrade parts on those.
That's what I use for my low intensity projects. I didn't realize the i7 ones were that cheap now, maybe I should grab another.
The RK3566 and RK3588 alternatives are pretty good, and there are a bunch of them from different companies.
I have a 3566 myself as a compatible alternative to a CM4, and it does its job just fine.
I haven't actually tried it since I'm still a beginner in selfhosting, but I was planning to buy a dedicated hardware for my homeland and my main two choices were the new Raspberry Pi 5 or some mini-PC like the one in this video I don't know if it could be similar to what you are looking for...
My current server runs on a fan less embedded Celeron board from ASRock, it runs really well... But since I've upgraded my desktop, I'm building a Ryzen server now
Rock 64 or zimaboard are some other alternatives. Iirc they're around the same price range though.
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