What is the preferred OS platform voor HA?

Hi,

I am currently running Hassio on a Pi3+ and i find it painfully slow when developing routines because of the frequent homeassistant_restart 's.

What is , in your opinion, the best OS platform (quickest, easiest to maintain, future proof) voor home assistant?

Let’s hear it fellow nerds…

Quite a common way is to host it in a Docker Container.
So what ever can host a docker container.

Some people use an Intel NUC type device or like myself I run docker on my NAS Drive (Synology)

Another option if you want to build your own NAS Drive type device have a look for an ITX board with a J5005 CPU on it. Very low wattage requirement.

NUC with Docker and any OS that can run it except for Windows

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There is no right answer

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I started with a RPi running a Hassbian image. I used that for several months. I really liked the idea of having the ability to VERY easily make a backup of a known good working system so in case I really screwed something up (which I did several times!) I could VERY easily be back up and running in a matter of 15 minutes.

Then I went to running HA in a manually installed virtual environment in Debian 9 on a NUC. I liked the improved performance but I REALLY missed the safety of a complete backup solution like I had on the RPi.

So ultimately I ended up running HA in Docker in Debian on the NUC using Synchthing (also in Docker) automatically backing up my config directory. If I screwed up my install of HA (which I did once) it was VERY easy to just wipe out the Docker container and rebuild it from scratch in literally seconds.

And since my OS isn’t locked down to only being able to run add-ons I can use the NUC to it’s full potential.

That said I understand that you can kind of get the best of both worlds (open OS and the benefit of Hassio add-ons) by installing Hassio in a regular Docker container too. I haven’t tried it yet because things just work the way I have it running right now.

I use a NUC with ubuntu 18.04 server and HA in a venv. I used this howto https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/installation/raspberry-pi/ (It works on any debian based os).

Very fast.

I use an UP Squared board so I get the speed benefits of not being on a Pi, whilst retaining the low power usage and the GPIO pins.

Bit pricey but would recommend.

That is a very cool looking board!

Thanks guys, you helped me out. I know what to do… NUC + Docker containers.

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