Ok, that sounds like a solid recommendation for the NUC. I think I can live without IPMI, especially since this is the start of my homelab (besides my RaspberryPis)
I've heard a lot about proxmox and I will definitely try it out before any other solution. Running VMs and containers side by side is a great plus.
At this point I haven't really looked at the router-with-custom-firmware game. I heard about openWRT and OPNsense, but I definitely need to do some research on that. Interesting site, though it looks terrible on mobile.
Thanks for your recommendations
It's good to know about the possibility with thunderbolt network adapters. I think I've already read about that somewhere. At this point I haven't really though about high speed network connection (my home network still runs on slow 100mbit routers and switches). Thanks for that tip