I have a server with a bunch of services just as Docker containers. I see that Proxmox is popular among the self-hosting community. I was wondering why?

I understand that running things in a VM provides better security than running them in a container. But is the difference so important given the relatively low risk that an exploit happens inside a container that leads to doing damage to the host machine?

There’s also obviously the additional overhead of using Proxmox. It wouldn’t be an issue for me as I should have enough resources to, say replace all my Docker containers with VMs. I’m more wondering if the security difference is so massive, or if there is another reason I’m missing why people use Proxmox.

Or am I misunderstanding how people use Proxmox? I was assuming people would use it like how you use Docker, i.e. different services get their own VM/container. If you have a different kind of setup I’d be interested in hearing it.

Edit: I would appreciate if people stop being pedantic and actually read the post. Obviously I am aware that you can run containers in VMs, or containers on bare metal alongside VMs. That’s not what the question is and you know it.

  • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    Proxmox or even just lazy old KVM GUI for anything that needs to be deployed manually in a VM (Home Assistant, WIndows VM, etc.). Otherwise you can even just spin up whatever manual service you want to run on an LXC container or bare metal host with the correct security settings with systemd and selinux if you want to be extra careful.

    Docker/Podman (the superior one lol) is just an automated deployment system in container form (like Ansible). It great for automated deployment without having to manually configure the installation process and worry about upgrades, changes, etc. You can even easily create your own images on the fly just for the purpose of having it run a single service inside a container.

    Proxmox equivalent would be like using Terraform/OpenTofu to deploy VMs to do the same thing. Its possible, but just not that common because of the reduced overhead with containers, and well supported deployment images with docker/podman specifically.

    Generally speaking, I’ve seen proxmox used more in lab environments were you want to emulate something like a complete network of machines whereas docker/podman has become the defacto server deployment platform.

    You’re just much more likely to find software with a published docker container and default docker compose script than the same thing in Terraform or even K8s/K3s.