Docker vs VM vs Synology Core vs OS

I’m currently running HA in a docker container on my Synology. Everything works for the most part but I’m finding myself adding more containers for addons/apps (Mosquito MQTT, Zigbee2MQTT, EufySecurity, Misic Assistant) and it’s starting to drain my system resourses which I’d like to keep for NAS stuff (I’m also running Plex, arr’s and bunch of other containers). I have noticed the Zigbee2MQTT addon does crash and reboot when i have everything running for a few hours (works fine if i turn a for containers off).

I’ve also had to follow some instructions to utilise the Synology USB ports for use with ZigBee USB dongle - and i’m always worried that could break on the next synology update.

So i’ve been thinking about doing things differently and thought this would be a good place to come for some advice.

I can see there is a HA Core install on the community addons in Synology packages which is an option but I’m a bit confused as what the Core versions does in comparison to Supervised or OS. Can I install apps or do i still need to utilise Docker. Would this fee my Synology up at all?

I have a spare laptop, which i’m considering utilising which might be a little overkill for HAOS but obviously i could run up a VM and then run OS but if OS would run better outside of a VM i also have an old NUC somewhere which I could use.

What are people opinions? What do you use?

My NAS is Synology DS218+ with 10gb RAM and tons of storage.
My Intel NUC is i3 8gb RAM and 125gb SSD (but i can utilise NAS storage as well).
Laptop is i5 16gb RAM and 250gb SSD (but i can utilise NAS storage as well).

I believe there are many different opinions on what’s the best way to run HA. Looking at your options and your goal to free up resources on yous NAS I believe that a HAOS installation directly on your NUC is the best choice. Because the NUC can run you HA installation just fine and still has additional headroom, but not too much like the laptop. And if you install HAOS directly on the HW it has direct access to all HW resources like USB etc, supports add-ons and backups. This would be the installation with the least risk for hassle. The notebook would be overkill for HA alone so you would most likely want to virtualize it (more effort) but has one advantage: an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), if your battery is still good.

The issue might not be with Docker but how powerful your Synology is. I have a QNAP NAS myself and only run Plex on it for this reason.

My understanding is that HAOS also uses docker (HA is one container and each add-on is a separate containers that HAOS manages) so not sure if there is an overhead reduction running this way. Perhaps someone else can confirm this.

HAOS without any add-on is already 6 containers running

wow - did not realise that - thanks for clarifying!

If you install HAOS directly, you have no option to add anything outside HA/addons. This is fine for low-end devices like a Pi, but a bit of a waste for a NUC.

If you choose to install anything other than HAOS, you are choosing to do the extra admin yourself. Unless you’ve got a really good reason, why do more work?

Running HAOS under Proxmox VM is a good option. Then you can always later add another VM to use for something else (or use Proxmox containers). If you’re adding VMs you might want to add memory though.