I wouldn’t recommend Docker for a production environment either, but there are plenty of container-based solutions that use OCI compatible images just fine and they are very widely used in production. Having said that, plenty of people run docker images in a homelab setting and they work fine. I don’t like running rootful containers under a system daemon, but calling it a giant mess doesn’t seem fair in my experience.

If I may ask: how practical is monitoring / administering rootless quadlets? I’m running rootless podman containers via systemd for home use, but splitting the single rootless user into multiple has proven to be quite the pain.

I get what you’re saying, but this feels like a weird question to ask in a community for selfhosting enthusiasts.