When you come from the Windows desktop world, it makes sense to use Windows for a home server because it is what you know. In fact that is how I started out, then I moved to Windows server OSes. Eventually, I landed in the Linux space for both desktop and server.

Microsoft has a philosophy and way of doing everything, but it is their way. When we’re talking about homelabs, we are talking about becoming admins of our own machines. Microsoft does not provide the level of flexibility that Linux does. For me the advantages of Linux over Windows are as follows:

• Cost: Microsoft licensing vs. free Linux licensing.
• Features: Linux has way more customizability than Windows ever has. Not to say that you cannot customize Windows, but it is clunky and will not be as granular as Linux. Native SSH allows me to connect to any of my machines and do things remotely from the command line. I spend so much more time in the command line now that I know how to use it. The GUI is often a crutch that has its place but still cannot hold a candle to the terminal.
• Old Hardware: I can run Linux on old hardware that Windows will choke on. This means I can use that old machine my neighbor is throwing out because it is so slow, to run my next project. My desktop is an HP 6300 (circa 2012) running Linux Mint with 14GB of RAM. For my day-to-day activities, this machine is awesome. I could never run Windows 10 or 11 on this box with the same ease of use. When this dies, I’ll upgrade to another old machine. Maybe a 2019 version by then.
• System Resources: Linux needs little to run. Raspberry Pis run Linux like a champ and can pump out some serious services that would take Windows at least 3-4x as much to run just because of the OS alone.

All my machines in my family home are Linux-based at this point. So much can be scripted and controlled remotely from the terminal. Management is easier IMO. Cronjobs and aliases are a magical joy.

I leverage a VPN and yt-dlp.

If helpful I can share the scripts I use to download new videos from channels. If you are seeking to download an entire channel… you need to consider the bandwidth that the VPS service will charge. I say use your home machine, a good VPN, and have at it.

A lot of great and valuable replies here so far. I’ll add my comments anyway.

I have learned over the years of selfhosting/homelabbing and being an IT professional that as u/emprahsFury stated,

Oftentimes though people don’t know what they don’t know, and we only find out that we don’t know after we’ve moved from the prevention phase to the remediation phase.

I have seen this for years professionally. Unless you think like the bad guy, you don’t know what the bad guy is thinking. Not knowing what the bad guy is thinking does not mean that the techniques and possibilities do not exist.

Taking some time to learn what the bad guys can do can be very helpful to the self-hoster in general.

I get music videos from YouTube and host them on Plex. If you are looking to receive new content on the regular, you could leverage yt-dlp on a Linux machine to download new content from your favorite YT channels such as Vevo.