So I've reached a point where I'm looking at spinning up a home server again, which means I'll finally have the resources to get my Bitcoin node back up and running.

Since I'm not planning to run an out-of-the-box node implementation like Umbrel, my first thought is to download Bitcoin Core, however I've heard many times about how the overwhelming majority of nodes are running this software. I know that if you don't download updates as soon as they release, the risk if the developers pulling off a malicious update are low, but even so, it doesn't sit right.

For this reason I'm looking into alternative node software that still uses the same Bitcoin consensus rules. One that I've seen is BTCD, the node software written in Go. https://github.com/btcsuite/btcd However, I'm sure there are others.

Does anyone have any experience running alternatives to Bitcoin Core? Is this even something worth considering? I'm leaning away from Bitcoin Core mainly just on the principle of trying to increase the variety of node software in use, but are there any practical concerns about using one type of software over the other?

If it helps inform your answers, I'll be running debian-based Linux.