Dahua must have improved their software. I was trying every brand of camera about 8 years ago when I setup my system. The first Dahua I bought required their ActiveX component for Internet Explorer to see the camera output from their web interface!
I agree that Dahua looked better but at the time their web interface was so bad I kept the Hikvisions.


A few years ago I bought some used Lenovo Xeons on eBay. Xeon E-2276G, 2224G, 2174G.
The 2224G pulls 15 watts streaming 4k videos with Plex. They are available for under $500.
For desktop, any AMD mini PC like a Beelink will work well and many are under $500.