Yes, performance is very close to i5-8250U ( https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/3042vs5178/Intel-i5-825... ), which was release at the end of 2017. I have this in my laptop that I use for work, VM's, IDEs and containers are running all the time on my system.

Works great, even if I have all CPU mitigations enabled, turbo boosting disabled, and running in powersave mode. What I do to avoid the fan from getting audible. However, with all the options I mentioned enable (especially enforcing a strict powersave profile/max frequency/etc) you'll get a bit of latency here and there; which I can put up with because I hate to hear the fans spin. With a fanless design, a better power profile (6W TDP vs 15W TDP), I wouldn't constrict my CPU to such extents.

To compare it in relative performance terms, the Apple M1 is ~3.8x times more performant than it (if that helps).

It has more than enough ram, but the cpu and gpu will probably slow you down, but that depends on what you are used to :).

But it's sold out already.

Depends on what you put in the containers ;)