https://gotenberg.dev/
...has been working well for me for the last few years. It's a headless instance of Google Chrome with a golang wrapper. Runs well in Docker or a cloud instance.
8 karma · joined July 26, 2021
We've also been v.happy users of this Caddy functionality for the last 3 years or so (our use case involves relatively low traffic niche white-labelling, YMMV etc)
I'm not aware of any other web server that offers anything equivalent to this simple "ask [URL]" feature? - Possibly just my ignorance though ;-)
Big fan of Caddy.
If you're just after "software-development-capable" and not a high-spec games beast, there are plenty of office refurb sellers that offer generic Dell/HP/etc desktop boxes. You can usually find an i5/i7 with 32GB RAM for £200ish.
Might want to get a fresh SSD separately though, and I'm assuming you've probably got monitor/mouse/keyboard lying around. Ok, it might cost you more like £300-£350, but it's still a lot of bang for your buck. I've done it a few times now and been very happy with the results.