Also thinkpads are just way cheaper, you can get a used T14 for like $400 and pretty much any framework is at least like $800

Thinkpads are so cheap because a million companies buy thousands of them and sell them when they’re a few years old. Not the case with framework

Plenty of companies are quite happy to pay for github licenses

Free github actions

You can still use Magisk to root the device if you can dump the firmware

This is really a vote with your wallet situation. Don’t buy android devices without the option to root and/or bootloader unlock.

Sure but I would think Anubis would also somewhat stop DDOS attacks since clients need to pass Anubis to access the website and across a DDOS swarm that would use up significant resources.

Wouldn’t anubis be effective against DDOS attacks?

You can use Immich, it’s not perfect for this use case but it is searchable by content. You could just create a second account so you don’t even need to host an extra service