No, you are confused. RTL and Alby Hub are not the same thing, even that seems similar at first sight.

What you can do with Alby is far more than RTL. RTL is limited to manage a remote node. Alby is more like a LN bank that can manage a LN node as backend.

What sime is trying to say, is that if you want to use that Start9 as a private home LN node, you can just use Alby Hub (and nothing else), with a backend node like LDK, LND, phoenixd, opening 1-2 private channels with any LSP and that's it. But from that step, you can expand your Alby Hub into a small LN bank for family and friends.