try some qotom boxes. There is a large range. You will need at least 4gb of ram, maybe 8gb, but only 6 is usable for home licence. A standard sata disk ssd or spinning.
Not exactly "low budget" but it's the best I could find for the money. I've been running mine with Sophos XG on my home network with zero complaints so far (4GB RAM with 32GB SSD). I typed up a blog post on installing Sophos XG on the Qotom devices (see link below).
I would have thought the quad core celeron was better value, faster cpu and more cores.
This one is slightly better future wise in my opinion. You do not need I3 or I5 processing power, but more CPU cycles. I have not been able to configure it due to some minor issues with new software on my MAC.
Yeah, that's a good point for Sophos XG - the Celeron J1900 is probably a better value as you can usually get them for cheaper. The only reason I went with the Core i5 was for the AES-NI support because I was originally going to run pfSense or OPNsense. I'm not sure if Sophos XG actually is able to utilize AES-NI or if there's future plans to utilize it. The other benefit of the Core i5 from at least the benchmarks I've seen (http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-5250U-vs-Intel-Celeron-J1900) is better single core performance which is going to give you higher throughput for things that are not multi-threaded like Snort (for a single connection). Otherwise, the Celeron is probably the better value.
You just need to find a simple, small "firewall appliance" or a "firewall computer" that is intel-compatible with at least 2 NICs, and up to 4 cores and 6GB of RAM. They can come "barebones" or with RAM and an SSD. They are usually fanless, so they make no noise.
There are a lot of great affordable options available for under $500. Many are under $300. Several here recommend Qotom Q Series. I like the Protectli Vault. I have also used ZBOX Nano, which other users here have too.
You can also ask around. If you have an old intel-compatible computer laying around or have one donated to you, it can work as long as it meets or exceeds the specifications.
Im sure you will find something you like that fits your budget.
