Hi! Im new to self hosting. Currently i am running a Jellyfin server on an old laptop. I am very curious to host other things in the future like immich or other services. I see a lot of mention of a program called docker.

search this on The internet I am still Not very clear what it does.

Could someone explain this to me like im stupid? What does it do and why would I need it?

Also what are other services that might be interesting to self host in The future?

Many thanks!

EDIT: Wow! thanks for all the detailed and super quick replies! I’ve been reading all the comments here and am concluding that (even though I am currently running only one service) it might be interesting to start using Docker to run all (future) services seperately on the server!

  • i_am_not_a_robot@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2·
    4 hours ago

    Borg / k8s / Docker are not the same thing. Borg is the predecessor of k8s, a serious tool for running production software. Docker is the predecessor of Podman. They all use containers, but Borg / k8s manage complete software deployments (usually featuring processes running in containers) while Docker / Podman only run containers. Docker / Podman are better for development or small temporary deployments. Docker is a company that has moved features from their free software into paid software. Podman is run by RedHat.

    There are a lot of publicly available container images out there, and most of them are poorly constructed, obsolete, unreprodicible, unverifiable, vulnerable software, uploaded by some random stranger who at one point wanted to host something.