If you're not using the GPIO or any of the ribbon cable peripherals there are much better options out there. But a Pi will be able to do things those machines never will.
Doesn't change the "[places] where a Pi will fit but these micro PCs won't" assertion but the pricing and sizing are not as egregious as you're suggesting.
For the price, you get massively more CPU power, 3x the number of easily connectable NVMe devices, at higher bandwidth each, 22x (!) the network bandwidth, and the ability to connect a real multi-lane PCIe card of your choice.
I still find it sad that NVMe is an afterthought in the Raspberry Pi ecosystem. SD is convenient, but it’s also slooooow, and it holds back a lot of raspberry pi use cases. The new-to-RPi5 official NVMe support still seems really awkward in the way it interferes with the overall thermal performance and the way it interferes with the IO header if you use the official board.
That doesn't really change my point that they are comparing the Pi to a PC that costs 4 - 8 times more (and in a much larger formfactor), so it's not surprising that it's faster.
It's 25x, the copper ports are 2.5g. It's even more if you use the usb-4 ports for ip over thunderbolt.
https://t.ly/S-OW6 (shortened Amazon link)
Now the 4020 isn't certainly a monster, but I can assure you it's way more performant than a RPi. Also, bear in mind that, as is the case with many Chinese products, those mini PCs are produced in huge quantities and sold under at least a dozen different ever changing "brands". Don't let the name "Wo-We" make you think this is something deemed to disappear in a few months; the name could certainly be thrown away but the product will most certainly reincarnate under another "brand".
I guess it’s subsidized by the malwares that come preinstalled.
https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-raspberry_pi_5_b_b...
Don't let the name "Wo-We" make you think this is something deemed to disappear in a few months; the name could certainly be thrown away but the product will most certainly reincarnate under another "brand".
Does that matter? If it dies in 2 months and I can't find the manufacturer because it's operating under a different name now, is that any different than if the manufacturer folded completely?
If the company resurrects itself every 6 months under a different name, then there's effectively no warranty on the product and there's no reason to think that it's built to be long lasting, since even bad reviews won't show up under the new brand name.
No one's gonna recommend an ancient middling mini-PC that costs vastly more than a modern current mini-PC.
Either go on the secondary market & get this old PC for under $100. Or go get some modern Ryzen mini-PC for $500. Or a decent n100 for somewhere in between, especially if you insist on new for some reason.
Of course, if you size and the ability to interface with other hardware via GPIO is the primary use - then yeah a SBC like a Rpi would be the better option. But for a small home server, one is better off just buying a mini-PC.