These things are awesome. I first got into digital modes with DStar and an Openspot. Now I got openspots and a pi-star mmdvm running at the house, along with a Shari allstar node. These all have been super fun to build. Building is always the best way to approach these things too.
Shari nodes are pretty cool. Honestly I jump around a lot between all my nodes. I use one for my D-Star stuff, and another for DMR/M17. M17 is a work in progress. The thing I like most about SHARI nodes, you build them yourself. It feels less like buying a product, and more like buying a fun project. Mine took me about 2 hours to build up. I have a reasonable amount of linux experience.