This puzzles me.

When we got solar we asked for quotes, but ‘No Tesla’. The sales rep said ‘We get that a lot’.

I knew a guy with a Tesla solar system and his advice was also “no Tesla”

Emphasis "knew" and "was"?

Via a tech community in a city I don’t live in anymore. His main criticism was that service is shit. Months waiting for service appointments, techs failing to update firmware on some components which then causes more outages, and having to spend hours waiting on the phone trying to get them to do anything about it. Half his system was offline for more than a month.

Haha, I’m actually in process of installing a home solar setup. That’s exactly what I told the installers too.

I wasn’t interested in hearing any advantages of a Tesla Powerwall, that brand is toxic to me now.

There’s plenty of good alternatives that don’t fund criminals like Tommy Robinson and Russell Brand.

What did you go with?

We have Sigenergy. Are they better than Teslas? Unsure, but at least I have no idea what the owner(s) think.

Nothing is installed yet but I think the plan is to go with Sunsynk. It's still being debated though.

I want a system that doesn't need to be connected to the cloud.

I did a solar project, and the before federal incentive price was 36k. My quote from Tesla was 87k.

It was also really hard to work with them to even get the bid.

It was quite the premium.

Like what?

If you have a string inverter setup, I’m not aware of anything good that is cheaper. If you have micro inverters then sure, but otherwise you have additional hardware cost.