Start off small, get an old PC that has an i5or better that’s got vt-d support. start off with 8gb of RAM or more. Then throw proxmox on it and you are off to the races. It will save you a lot of money since you can run multiple virtual machines or lxc containers. This is how I started out, my proxmox host now has 26gb of RAM and its running very smoothly . i like opnsense as a router and firewall but its a little advanced but amazing, also get an access point and a switch and you can start building your network. You could also even run opnsense in a VM but that gets a little confusing but its an option.
I know the desktop, and mobile apps work without https, however I can’t remember if you can set it up via those apps?
I ran vaultwarden for a couple of years without q certificate, I just couldn’t log into my instance via the browser.