Choosing Between Start9 and Umbrel for Electrum Node

Hey everyone, So I started my journey with crypto a couple of months ago, got a Ledger and all that, then I dove into running Electrum on some airgapped mini-pcs. Now I’m looking to take it a step further and run my own Bitcoin node. I’ve set up both Start9 and Umbrel to see what’s up, but god, that blockchain is massive. Would love to hear thoughts on the pros and cons before I commit to one.

With Start9, you can choose to skip TOR for remote access. You just need the onion address from Electrum. If you’re on a local network, no TOR needed, you’ll get a LAN address. I set up Bitcoin Knots on Start9 and I think it’s way better than Core. Had no experience with Umbrel. It took me around a day to download the blockchain on a really fast connection.

Nice, thanks for the info! So I can just turn off TOR without messing anything up? My internet’s pretty fast now, just got rid of the data cap so I’m ready to roll. If I can do that, Start9 sounds better for me. I read Umbrel has more containerization stuff going on which might complicate things. I’m here to learn about Bitcoin, not to become a Linux wizard.

You don’t actually need to worry about turning TOR off. It’s not installed by default on Start9, so you’re good. Just find your LAN address in System->About to connect without TOR. Bitcoin Knots can be switched in the community registry. Just hit "change" for that.

Given what you need, honestly, I think Umbrel might be the way to go. You want an Electrum server, the Mempool, and maybe Lightning later? Both have those features. But you don’t want TOR running all the time, and Start9 does that by default. Even if you can turn it off, it might cause issues. Umbrel's optional TOR setup looks cleaner.

I don’t use either, but I can clarify a couple of things. Bitcoin Core does support TOR, but you might need to configure it yourself depending on Start9 or Umbrel. And about that data cap, not sure what you mean, but the current Bitcoin blocksize is around 700GB.

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I ended up picking Start9. The OS felt lighter, and I vibe with their philosophy more. Here’s what I found out: 1. Using bitcoind and electrs without TOR isn’t straightforward, requires some Linux tweaking. Haven’t done it yet, but looks possible. 2. Their support is on point. I posted something and got a reply super quick.

Quick update: Configuring Start9 for electrs and bitcoind over LAN instead of TOR is actually pretty easy. Just in case anyone is curious, it works like a charm. Still not sure if I can switch off TOR completely.

I compiled a full comparison of Umbrel vs Start9 on my site. Might help anyone stuck between the two.