Recommendations for pros and cons (2026 edition) [v4]

For context, I am working with a pretty modest budget so high-end suggestions probably will not land. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Been thinking about this for a while and curious what the community thinks.

There is a lot of conflicting advice online and most of it is from 2019. This came up at a meetup recently and the room was split, so curious what the broader community thinks.

Looking for honest feedback, not validation. The trade-offs here are not obvious to me and I keep flip-flopping. I tried three different approaches and none of them felt quite right.