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Comment by bix6 | Hacker News Reader

For the self hosters: docker containers or not?

They are so easy / portable but perhaps systemd is a better option as the author suggests.

Podman + systemd is how I run production workloads at work.

For us it's the perfect balance between simplicity, observability (Beszel) and reliability. Not the right tool if you have dynamic workloads but definitely the right tool for boring and predictable workloads.

At home I run K3S, it's awesome. It also breaks a lot and does add a whole bunch of complexity that I would only recommend if you enjoy tinkering and fixing things.

I second this, it's great. Commonly called "Quadlets".

I also use BGP advertised pod networks so each pod gets it's own IP address that's directly routable (l3 ipvlan) with the rest of my network (hint, don't use 100.64.0.0/10 for that if you use tailscale), so I don't bother with NAT on the host itself or port mapping or port conflicts. It also makes caddy in front of it super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Quadlets looked super interesting when I stumbled upon it. However it still felt too much for my "few go binaries thrown on a server" setup. I ended up going with Ansible to set things up (and of course I use systemd).

If you're already using systemd it's barely any effort to add quadlets. Give them a try!

I personally use NixOS and a mix of systemd services and Quadlet-Nix for the few containers that have too many dependencies and moving parts. Works well.

I had not heard of quadlet-nix. How interesting and tidy!

My server is running on NixOS and I went with systemd containers - really happy with my setup. It was not at all difficult to set it up with Claude

I have a stupid question: if I'm using nixos why do I need docker or systemd containers? Especially with systemd sandboxing

I prefer docker containers (on proxmox VMs), but that could just be the familiarity of a few years experience talking. It does add some distance from 'bare metal' but it also makes backup/restore, and therefore portability, quite simple. I backup both the VMs and the 'persistent' container data that I always create dedicated volumes for, so I have a couple of different avenues and granularity for restoring.

There's nothing else out there, that I know of, that offers improvements on any kind of scale that it would be worth my migrating to.

I do hear good things about podman, so if I was starting from scratch I'd look into that. I have one podman instance running UnifiOS, but that's only because there's no official docker compose from Ubiquiti (and maybe that's telling in itself). Podman feels more opaque to me than docker, but I have years under docker and essentially zero under podman.

I had an easier time moving a project from docker compose to k3s after wasting so much time with podman compose (maybe expected considering than k3s is still root daemon)

Most of the time projects provide a ready to use compose file. I use dockge that provides a simple web interface for compose configs, so just paste in the compose file there and run it.

Currently testing out FreeBSD jails, but with OCI images and Podman :)

https://daemonless.io

BastilleBSD is another great way to run FreeBSD+jails using their templates

https://bastillebsd.org/projects/bastillebsd/

https://github.com/BastilleBSD/templates

Container manager on Synology. Don't have much choice. Some stuff can run native but it's easier to run containers.

The big issue with Synology is the really crappy db logs driver they use. If a container has been running for a while it takes an age to see the logs via the Web UI.

There is a solution though: https://github.com/telnetdoogie-labs/synology-docker

There are really easy to user docker app managers out there. The author says 'I already use systemd'. I mean, I guess I'm using systemd, but really I'm using e.g. runtipi with an app store, web-based config and logging, and a super easy app template. I can point claude at any project with a docker release and in a couple minutes have it show up in my app store to install, run, simple data backups, etc.

Personally I use docker with portainer to handle the stacks/containers, have done for many years. I like it.

Yes. NixOS running Podman containers is where I ended up after trying almost everything :)

Have you tried quadlet-nix? It sounds like it would fit your setup pretty nicely :)

I have considered it & heard good things about quadlets, but since I am more of a Compose person, I use compose2nix instead (self-plug).

Docker containers are fine. I've moved between 5 NAS' over the years and docker has enabled it to be seemless.

rsync data directories. docker compose up. Done.

On the consumer or even prosumer nas products which have a semi-locked down system (ie Truenas/qnap/Synology). Technically you have root but as soon as you update the OS all/most of the changes end up being broken. Yes you could probably do something and deal with it. But personally I've spent too long babysitting it on the first and second nas that I no longer care.

For me, I say it depends on the service. I use Coolify for docker apps usually smaller apps, and LXC when docker won't cut it for whatever reason.

Yes, especially if you running a multi-node setup. I'm still running on HashiCorp Nomad.

Unraid (which is basically Docker and VMs)

Coolify running on a VM for my vibe coded apps

Why not have your cake and eat it too with quadlets?

Quadlets rule, I have tons of them configured for my professional and hobby/self-hosting services. Super convenient, I wish there was something equivalent for my Mac (launchd files just don't cut it).

For several years, Docker with portainer

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