Custom service installation

Hello everyone,

I have a question regarding custom services and the way to install them on HomeAssistant OS.

I’m currently running HA in a Python virtual env. Why that? Because when I joined HA, I already had a bunch of services running as daemon so it was the easy way to keep control on my host and being able to migrate quickly on HA. My services are essentially some MQTT servers running with node/python

I’d like to know how I could run those service easily with HomeAssistant OS. I already tried to install it on a different SD card but I didn’t really love the experience (or maybe I just didn’t see the potential). I guess the way is to go through add-on right? I already Dockerized some of my services so it would be easily doable I guess but what are the possibility for my use cases? And what are the potential limitation vs keeping my manual Python installation? Having the full control on my host makes me feel more comfortable, and I can run docker-compose file as well, which I don’t know if possible as add-ons? Can I use any Docker image I want (supported by my host obviously)?

Thanks for your help,
William