Generally even in containerized deployments, you run one container per service/process. You wouldn't run everything you’d run on one box in one container.

I definitely recommend using docker compose or similar even in a one node deployment versus just installing and running things on the host linux system like it’s still 1998. Having a single directory to back up and a single file defining all of the services that can easily be redeployed is very convenient.

The performance impact seems completely unjustified for most of the things people do with a personal machine however.

What is the performance impact? Going one page into Google results, I found this paper. Is there a better reference?

> At light workload levels, the native host performs better than Docker. However, as the workload increases, both Docker and the native host show similar performance, with the difference getting smaller

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376557310_Comparati...

> What is the performance impact?

DNAT, layered file system access, likely duplication of libraries if you don't pay much attention to your containers.

The performance impact is approximately zero.

No, I wouldn't have started differently and I like the performance and the dedicated hardware I get for the money I spend. I have a custom backup solution that will upload daily backups of all my data to remote drives and I should be able to restore the setup on another machine without much problem.