Best Piping for Home Plumbing?

So unfortunately I have to get the house re-piped soon. I'm thinking I'll go with copper but am open to exploring other options such as cpvc or pex. Does anyone have experience with this? I'm also curious about what gauge of copper to go with. My fiance and I live in a single story 2 bed 2 bath 1200 ft/2 house. The quotes I've gotten so far are right around $5000 for copper. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Pex will be much cheaper. Thats what I use for all the new plumbing.

Pex is what we have been spec'ing for all of our latest projects. Seems to be cheaper. It also allows for expansion of the pipe without breaking in cases where a pipe may freeze (to an extent). Good stuff and much cheaper to run if you have the tools. Only downfall is the "home running" of the piping. So more pipe may be used.

I had my house re-plumbed with PEX a couple years ago. A lot cheaper than copper and guaranteed for like 50 years.

I've been putting off installing a water filter/filtration system for the longest time. I have the copper to do the job but it just seems like a perfect place to run copper->pex->system->pex->copper to install the system. I've never installed pex but it seems simple even though I don't have the tools. Would anyone vote against doing such a job?