I would absolutely look into it. Many years ago when Docker emerged, I did not understand it and called it “Hipster shit”. But also a lot of people around me who used Docker at that time did not understand it either. Some lost data, some had servicec that stopped working and they had no idea how to fix it.

Years passed and Containers stayed, so I started to have a closer look at it, tried to understand it. Understand what you can do with it and what you can not. As others here said, I also had to learn how to troubleshoot, because stuff now runs inside a container and you don´t just copy a new binary or library into a container to try to fix something.

Today, my homelab runs 50 Containers and I am not looking back. When I rebuild my Homelab this year, I went full Docker. The most important reason for me was: Every application I run dockerized is predictable and isolated from the others (from the binary side, network side is another story). The issues I had earlier with my Homelab when running everything directly in the Box in Linux is having problems when let´s say one application needs PHP 8.x and another, older one still only runs with PHP 7.x. Or multiple applications have a dependency of a specific library when after updating it, one app works, the other doesn´t anymore because it would need an update too. Running an apt upgrade was always a very exciting moment… and not in a good way. With Docker I do not have these problems. I can update each container on its own. If something breaks in one Container, it does not affect the others.

Another big plus is the Backups you can do. I back up every docker-compose + data for each container with Kopia. Since barely anything is installed in Linux directly, I can spin up a VM, restore my Backups withi Kopia and start all containers again to test my Backup strategy. Stuff just works. No fiddling with the Linux system itself adjusting tons of Config files, installing hundreds of packages to get all my services up and running again when I have a hardware failure.

I really started to love Docker, especially in my Homelab.

Oh, and you would think you have a big resource usage when everything is containerized? My 50 Containers right now consume less than 6 GB of RAM and I run stuff like Jellyfin, Pi-Hole, Homeassistant, Mosquitto, multiple Kopia instances, multiple Traefik Instances with Crowdsec, Logitech Mediaserver, Tandoor, Zabbix and a lot of other things.

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I love Traefik! When I started, I tried NGinx, but could not wrap my head around it. So I tried Caddy. Pretty easy to understand andI used it for a while. Then I had demands Caddy could not do ant stumbled uponTraefik. As you said, a learning curve, butfor me much easier than NGinx. I like that you can put the Traefik config inside the Compose files and that the service only is active in Traefik when the actual Containers are up and running. I added Crowdsec to my external facing Traefik instance and even use a plain Traefik instance for all my internal services also. And it can forward http, https, TCP and UDP.

Thank you for your feedback! I get the impression that it might work if used on a small scale when it´s not public. I guess I will have a new container soon :-)

One reason is because I can. And because of that, I tend to host things myself which I can. This generates cost and work to maintain it on my side and not for others. A few less users from our household on a public instance means more room for others who are just not as tech-savvy and have no other choice as to rely on public instances. So it is a mix of respecting other peoples time, effort and money and a part is just the nerd that wants to find out how it works and how it´s done :-)

Oh wow, that is a lot more usage than I can think of for all of us here, haha! Thank you very much. That sounds very promising.

I was just looking for cheap backup space recently and Hetzners Storage Box BX21 is 13€ per month for 5 TB, 20 Snapshots and unlimited traffic. I did not compare the service with backblaze yet, though.

Setup of the HMAC Key for the CouchDB was indeed the step I struggled with too. I think the first time I either made a mistake or used a broken Website to generate a Base64 value. The 2nd time my mistake was that I put in the Base64 value for the HMAC Key into the jwt.ini AND in the docker-compose.yml. But in the docker-compose.yml COUCHDB_HMAC_KEY, I had to put it unencoded and in the jwt.ini hmac:_default it has to be Base64 encoded. Maybe this is the thing you did wrong too?

I bet you are close!

On the other hand, if you are the only person using the shopping list and your current setup offers you what you need, maybe it is not worth it for you. For me it was (and updating when it runs is super easy, I promise!). The instant sync over all devices is great + it keeps working when I lose reception in a shop and syncs again instantly when I have internet again. But what makes Groceries for me are:

• The ability to have an item on multiple shopping lists if needed and if it is checked off from one list, it is checked of from the other lists too. I stopped forgetting buying stuff that was not available in the 1st shop to get in the 2nd.
• The ability to add items to aisles and move the aisles in different order for each list (every shop I visit has a bit of a different layout). This made shopping super quick for me, because I enter the shop and walk through it exactly once and have everything I need, because it is all in the correct order on the respective list.

Oh, and adding a photo to an item is super useful if you are like me and need very close instructions what to get for your partner if you stand in front of a shelf with 100 different types of cheese which look all exactly the same to you… having a photo is sometimes a life saver for me :-)

Hmm, what do docker logs -f <container> tell? I made myself a compose file and use traefik. Not on my PC atm, but when I had problems getting it running, I made mistakes with the secrets. But that should show in the logs.

Maybe Tandoor for recipes and Groceries from David Shay for shopping lists of all kind. So far the best multi User shopping list / app I ever had.