The redesigned Mac mini M4 Pro arrived in October 2024. Smaller body, same connectivity, M4 Pro silicon. I bought one as a home server replacing a Linux box, and it has been the right call.

Idle power I measured 4.2 watts at idle, 18-22 watts under typical load (Docker containers, Postgres, Redis, a few personal services). At UK electricity prices that is roughly £15-20 a year to run.

What I run on it - Postgres 17 in Docker for personal projects - A receipt scanner instance using my own [open-source receipt-scanner](https://github.com/sarmakska/receipt-scanner) - Photo backup with Immich - Tailscale for remote access - Plex (rarely)

Performance At £1,399 for the 24GB / 512GB Pro spec, it punches above any x86 home server in its class for typical workloads. Fan never spins up audibly.

Networking No 10GbE in the base model, you have to spec the upgrade (£100). Worth it for any serious home use.

Booting headless First boot needs a display. After that, install macOS-headless-fix or just leave a dummy HDMI dongle plugged in. Auto-login + screen sharing means you almost never touch the box.

When to pick a Linux box instead If you need Nvidia GPU compute, native Docker (rather than virtualised), or non-arm-compatible binaries. The Pi-class crowd should pick a Pi 5 or N100 mini PC, not this.

If you would rather just put it on a VPS, [DigitalOcean's £200 credit through this link](https://m.do.co/c/3389d86ebe0c) covers the first two months on a $48 droplet.

The Mac mini M4 Pro is the best home server I have used