That site is lovely, thank you!

As I mentioned in the post, my money budget is around 1000€ as a target, but it extends both up and down. I can stretch if needed, but if that’s comically overkill then I’d be happy to go lower. Time budget… not too high, but also not super low. I can certainly spend a day or two setting everything up. Electricity costs are certainly a factor, power prices here were some of the highest globally, even before the extreme increases lately.

Also thanks for the tip of the S3 backup, it’s probably a good idea to have an extra copy of important data off-site, yeah.

I use my computer normally, but importantly for ergo keyboards, I also play video games. Due to that, initially I looked into ZSA with their Moonlander, as it seemed to fulfill the role of being ergonomic, while having enough keys to let me comfortably game. As usual, a compromise solved neither issue. Due to neither being overly comfortable, nor being satisfactory for gaming, I ended up selling it. I’m now on a Piantor Pro and so far it’s pretty decent, while keeping my old traditional keyboard around for games. It’s not perfect, but if you play games and want an ergo keyboard there doesn’t seem to be anything that truly is.

I was considering the VPN option, but as you mentioned for game servers that’s not reasonable, and for some of the collaborative tools I’d prefer being able to give people I don’t trust that much access, for instance people at work/university, to work together with them on whatever would be needed.

If I just decided to make the home server a home-only server, that would ease a lot of my worries. I guess I could get a personal one, with sensitive info but only home network access, and just rent a second one? It’s not like they’re that expensive if you’re just doing small-scale things and find a decent provider

Thank you to all of you for the great advice <3

I think for now I’ll get a Moonlander, or at least something similar, and in the (very) long run, if I’m not satisfied or it doesn’t suit all my needs, invest in a soldering kit and a 3D printer to start testing out more and more smaller diy style keyboards (depending on how many I’ll test that’s probably cheaper, tinkering is fun, and I’ll probably find other uses for those as well) to see what fits me best, or what I could use as a secondary option.

But for now, I’ll just get a nice base that will certainly work. Experimentation comes later. Thank you all. I’ll be sure to at least have a good look at all the keyboards recommended here, and make a list of my favorite ones for long-term experimentation, but at the time I just don’t quite have the money for more than one keyboard, even if many of them seem very cool (；・∀・)