- has at least three network interfaces
- is a relatively straightforward x86 system you can just slap a mainstream Linux distro on
- is small enough to be integrated into a custom enclosure
- is affordable.
It's been a reliable platform with only one broken serial port and one broken ethernet interface in some 500 deployed systems (flash endurance is another story, however).
ServeTheHome has some video reviews and user forum threads on them.
Still holding my breath for a Ryzen-Embedded-based APU successor but that's the closest I'm aware of.
In any case, due to COVID-induced shortages we already had to transition away to other hardware. This has been a huge relief as we had to ditch our custom legacy software stack built on APU+OpenWRT and came up with a generic Ansible/AWX based solution you can run on almost any platform with no tweaking.
Something like this? https://www.solid-run.com/fanless-computers/industrial-embed... (can't find prices yet, sadly.)
Also some time this year a successor to the (Zen1 and very dated) Epyc 3000 series is supposed to show up. I've been running 2 of those and they were nice back when they were fresh. Much more of a small-server setup though.
- no ECC
- no DRTM
- no schematics
- no open-source firmware support
Trustworthiness of those devices is at least questionable.
Today AMD announced [1] Ryzen 5000 with network appliance as target market. I can only imagine how expensive it would be in final design.
[1]: https://www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2023-4-20-amd...
They weren't part of the wish-list I replies to, though!
That said, I have been extremely happy with my old WRAP boards; they worked for years without a hitch with PfSense (now I would use OpnSense), and didn't swap them with newer PcEngines boards just because at that time they were already a tad slow for today's Internet.
The cost depends on how much memory / storage you need, obviously, but it's not that different from the ALIX/APU once you include things like power supplies, cases, etc.