Hi!
I hope you guys are able to help me decide which of the following to buy:
For the NUC, I want to install hass.io in Docker. For the RPi, it’s going to be hassOS. Besides that I want to setup 3-4 cameras with Frigate. I’ve been reading abit on the forums and the Google Coral USB seems to be a good investment either way.
Can you guys help me decide what to buy?
NUC for sure
I would go NUC because you are already going beyond what the older Raspberry PI can do with your cameras. I’m not sure of the performance level of the Raspberry Pi 4 with HASS, only used it on Raspberry PI 3+.
I’m currently running a Dual Core Celeron NUC and it’s doing just fine! Database is on another server and ZWave is running on a Raspberry PI 3+.
I made the move to a NUC myself after bogging down my RPI3B+ (even with a relatively small collection of entities). It’s amazing how peppy the system is now. The PI4 has the benefit of being able to work at reasonable speeds on an SSD, but it still lacks the power in the processor area that even a modest NUC will give you.
I’d echo what ronytomen said about cameras taxing a PI too.
Thanks for the replies!
I will go with the NUC!
Be careful! There are many, many models of Nuc’s 
some are slower than a Rpi 4…many are faster. I highly recommend you buy used but check the processor on the Nuc and check it’s passmark score vs the RPi3 and RPi4 processors.
You can also install on a thin client such as the Wyse 5020 which you can buy new on ebay for less than $60 including a keyboard, mouse, power supply, stand 4GB memory and 32GB msata storage. That’s my current configuration…but I was running just fine on an RPI 3…couldn’t resist upgrading for $55…and I learned alot along the way.
Be sure to buy a “pro” ssd!
Good to know!
I’ve been looking at the Intel NUC NUC10i5FNK or the i3 equivalent. How does that compare? I can’t seem to find the RPi’s ARM on Passmark… 
M.2 and sata versions are faster than USB version by 2-4times
Could you substantiate this? Because any NUC would always win in a contest with Rpi in terms of raw performance, regardless of silicon used simply because it can muster a hell of a lot more horsepower (even entry level Celeron NUCs) than the Broadcom chipset used by Rpi.
It is no contest between NUC and Rpi for running Home Assistant (even if you could permanently overclock Rpi to something entirely obscene like 3 - 3.5 GHz, set aside x86/x64 vs. ARM architecture) simply because NUCs support SATA (and some NUCs even support NVMe) while Rpi currently can only make use of USB. We can speak again when Raspberry Pi Foundation adds support for NVMe (or even SATA); however, until that time, an Intel NUC would blow any Rpi so high out of the water that it would burn on the reentry because the microSD would always hold Rpi back. And microSD would likely fail whenever it is needed the most (this is not to say it would fail instantly; however, it is not a resilient option when having to run intense I/Os which Home Assistant needs).
When factoring the cost of microSD card and power supply for Rpi (not to mention case, heat sink or fan), there is little difference vs. even the entry level NUC.
Regardless of the above, this is not a critique of the Rpi platform. It is very powerful and versatile; however, it is not a good option for running Home Assistant when there are more than a few dozen sensors involved.
You did…references to RPI4 generally put it in the 1200-1300 passmark range. If all you are going to run in home assistant and nothing else that’s cpu intensive, the nuk you’re looking at is massively overpowered The wyse 5020 with it’s AMD GX-415GA processor is just slightly faster than a pi 4. I’d be looking for a nuc with a processor that’s about 3000 passmark. the passmark on the nuc you are looking at is over 6000. It certainly will run home assistant Processor isn’t everything, of course but you get the idea.
NUC. Despite what any are saying here, practically any NUC is going to outperform a pi4.
I’ll further suggest NUC. No more SD card failures. Plus it’s nice not to worry about outgrowing the pi4 in the near future.
Never had an SD card failure in 2 years across two different Rpi (3, then 4)… but I’ve started to feel like my luck might run out. I am also looking at having the HA system handle more than just HA with zoneminder/frigate, and just… a lot of other stuff so I can repurpose the other machine that’s running all that stuff into another machine. I just ordered a NUC (NUC10i7FNH1). It’s MASSIVELY overpowered, but that’s the point, considering how much random stuff I’m going to cram onto it.
I love the flexibility the NUC gives me. My rpi would get sluggish as I start adding things. The NUC might be overkill but I’ll grow into it.
There have been a number of threads recently on the forums discussing this same topic. You could also check those out to get some information and view points. Here’s a couple with a quick search that I found that might help.
This probably depends a lot on the “age” of your SD card. If it’s brand new and fairly large, it may go a long time without reaching a point where it actually can’t write data (and thus fails). For me the tipping point wasn’t so much SD card failure, but speed. SSD is just so much faster.
My NUC runs Windows+Virtual Box+HA running in a virtual machine which may seem complex compared a PI dedicated to running HA alone. However, it was easy to find the method for starting the virtual machine unattended when the system reboots and easy to find complete instructions for the setup.
I can set up the virtual machine with more resources than currently available on the PI. (I’m currently running fine with only 3GB RAM, but I could expand that considerably if my RAM use get much, much larger.)
The thing I like the most about the NUC is (as brandont also says) the flexibility: There’s a lot of high-speed I/O already built-in, particularly for SSDs. Further, there are more “lanes” for that I/O as well. There’s also much more built-in expandability (eg: RAM and storage).
The one downside is, of course, with all this, the NUC will draw more power. You can get a UPS module for a PI that runs a long time on a couple of batteries. You’ll need a bigger UPS for a NUC.
I recommend the NUC8i5BEH
PI4/NUC is not the only choice. Any amd64 PC will be a good option. I am a bit sick of this forum being an advertising space for the Intel NUC. It is just another PC in a small form factor.
My current HA machine is a Lenovo Thinkcentre M72e. Tiny and indistinguishable from any other PC, just like a NUC.