Instead of a Raspberry Pi you can look into used/refurbished Thin Clients which are way cheaper than a Pi at the moment.
I would strongly recommend to start experimenting in your local network too and not rent a VPS in the internet. There is a very high risk it will end up in someones botnet, if you don’t know what you’re doing.
For your local network, make sure to not forward any ports from the internet into your LAN and disable UPnP and the like. After that you should be pretty safe from direct attacks from the internet.
For more detailed tips you should tell, what you want to self host. Start small and learn along the way.
Instead of a Raspberry Pi you can look into used/refurbished Thin Clients which are way cheaper than a Pi at the moment.
I would strongly recommend to start experimenting in your local network too and not rent a VPS in the internet. There is a very high risk it will end up in someones botnet, if you don’t know what you’re doing. For your local network, make sure to not forward any ports from the internet into your LAN and disable UPnP and the like. After that you should be pretty safe from direct attacks from the internet.
For more detailed tips you should tell, what you want to self host. Start small and learn along the way.