This is kind of a philosophical question, but I’d welcome input.
I’m running hass.io on top of Ubuntu and docker, without HassOS, so I have the ability to set up other containers.
There are some hass.io add-ons that aren’t really an HA tool, just a useful separate application. For example, I’m currently looking at the community add-on for the Unify controller. I can install the add-on, or I can just install a separate container from DockerHub. There are other such add-ons that don’t really seem to be necessary to run as add-ons.
So, pros and cons. Run things like this as an add-on, or install them as wholly unrelated containers? I realize it may just be personal preference, but I’m curious what your preference is, and why.
I could be corrected but if you need to restart HA (say to load new automations) wouldn’t this then render the add-ons unavailable during that time, there making things like Unify unusable for that duration? Obviously the downtime is minimal and in many cases not an issue, but something I thought of. Having it in a separate Docker container would allow it to continue running. Or would the add-on stay running anyway because HassIO add-ons are already in separate containers? I’m not completely up to speed with how all that works to be honest, simply thinking out loud…
Addons run independently of the Home Assistant restarts so far as I know.
I generally add addons rather than seperate external containers as I manage them in Hassio then. Other non-HA stuff from outside of course.
Exception is portainer - I already had that before frenck made an addon and I never saw a need to change.
It’s a personal preference.
That’s why you see those add-ons as extraneous. If you’re running HassOS you don’t really have many options for docker. It becomes easier to manage all those docker containers for people that don’t understand docker.
Personally I don’t use hassio, and prefer normal docker. I run those things in their own containers.
No. Restarting HA (not the entire device) would only restart the container.
Good to know, thanks. All my previous comment is basically redundant then 
In that case I’d just stick to HassIO add-ons where they exist I think