Docker Containers vs Virtual Machines: Complete Comparison Guide [2026]

It&rsquo;s Thursday night and you&rsquo;re planning a new homelab project. You need to run a few services — perhaps a PostgreSQL database, an nginx reverse proxy, a self-hosted Git server, and maybe an Open WebUI instance for local LLM access. The question hits you immediately: should each service live in its own VM, or should you use Docker containers? Or maybe LXC containers inside Proxmox? And…