What’s the Best Remote Management Tool for a Small Fleet of Raspberry Pis and Ubuntu Hosts?

Honestly, I don't think Ansible is overkill at all. It's pretty much the standard tool for configuration management and works great across different scales. As an alternative, if you're specifically looking for remote access, Raspberry Pi Connect is simple to set up and could be a good fit. Just bear in mind it’s more about remote access than full management.

Ansible is a solid choice! It might seem like overkill at first, but it scales perfectly whether you're managing a few devices or an entire enterprise setup. You can start simple with commands like `ansible all -m shell -a 'COMMAND'` to execute scripts on all your devices until you’ve organized everything into playbooks. Trust me, you'll appreciate the structure once you get everything set up.

Consider checking out Action1. It’s not self-hosted and is based in Houston, but it meets a lot of your needs and is free for up to 200 devices. It’s mainly focused on patch management but also offers scripting and basic remote desktop capabilities. Just a heads up, they might not have remote desktop for Linux agents fully operational yet.

You might want to look into MeshCentral. It allows you to install an agent on each device that connects to a central server. The setup is straightforward, and since it’s a Node.js app, it should be pretty light on resources.

I really don’t see how Ansible could be considered overkill for your situation. It's quite versatile and can be used efficiently for your needs.