Also sounds like we can run multiple kernels at once during normal operations, to isolate processes.

So, could I run a second kernel for, say, Docker to use? Isolate those containers away from the host system kernel?

VMs on a server are great fun, and there are some use cases where you’d absolutely need them (as parent said, running Windows on a Linux server, etc). I virtualized my whole-network router using virtualized OPNSense which is BSD based.

If you aren’t into spending time (and, eventually , money) on a setup that does “everything”, you don’t need Proxmox.

But it’s fucking AWESOME for tinkering. I think the question to ask yourself is, do you want a homelab, or do you want to just set-it-and-forget-it?

If you want services to be there without spending time on it, keep it simple. If you want the power that added complexity brings, and you have the means (time/energy/maybe money for upgrades etc) then by all means take the leap. It’s fun as hell, if you’re into it.

Docker in LXC can be a pain, especially when using backups as the Overlay2 filesystems don’t really jive with the way Proxmox does backups. And forget about running Docker in an unprivileged LXC.

Running in a VM is perfectly fine though; not sure what issues anyone has there. I ran on big beefy servers with 24 cores and tons of RAM though.

It was nice to be able to move my services between machines using a live migration while doing updates though; but again you have to be set up for that. My entire network was managed with twin OPNSense routers as VMs in Proxmox; they handled their own failover and so I could just shut down one at a time to run updates, even to Proxmox itself, and when it came back up then I could work on the other one. But, I wanted to learn all that and have zero downtime so the wife wouldn’t get mad every time I botched something (which, especially in the beginning, was often)

If you don’t have the money or time and just have one server box with a normal amount of RAM and disk; Proxmox is probably overkill unless you want to experiment with VMs or Linux containers. It’s an awesome product and I will sing its praises all day, but if you just want some docker containers you can make a far simpler setup; although I will say that the “overhead” is way less than you might think. It’s just more complicated (not hard, there’s just more going on than vanilla Debian or something)

SQLite has made huge performance improvements in the last like 3-5 years.

I wouldn’t spin up an enterprise NextCloud with it but for a home NAS serving up to maybe a dozen people it’s more than enough.

SQLite actually has incredible performance these days. But I get your point :)

You can install NextCloud with snap.