If the package you’re using stays up to date and doesn’t require much setup, you could plug a dockerTools.buildLayeredImage into the imageFile attribute. The name and the tag in the built image should match what’s in the image attribute. An example (busybox is only included for debugging):

        image = "my-calibre-web:latest";
        imageFile = pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
          name = "my-calibre-web";
          tag = "latest";
          contents = [ pkgs.busybox ];
          config.Cmd = [
            "${pkgs.calibre-web}/bin/calibre-web"
            "-p"
            "/config/app.db"
            "-g"
            "/config/gdrive.db"
            "-i"
            "0.0.0.0"
          ];
        };

I’ve used proxmox with VMs running Debian for Docker Compose stacks.
Most “get started quickly” tutorials are docker based, and building into a compose stack with dependencies is easy enough.
Then a VM per stack (depending on isolation, duplication/redundancy and all that).

I’ve recently started playing with k8s, and Talos Linux is amazing.
I went from no-idea to k8s-yaml-hell faster than I could imagine. No need to configure kubernetes.

I lean on nixos modules first, but half the time it either doesnt exist or its too complicated at first glance. So I will manually create an oci-container configuration by referencing a docker compose on the projects site. For simple compose files this is easy. Sometimes its not easy, and I dont end up deploying it.

I’ve been wanting to find or build a method that lets me drop a compose alongside ny config and have nix load the yaml and build the oci-container configuration for me. That would be nice since Im familiar with compose syntax and it’s usually easier to write imo.

I use both 1 and 3, personally (although docker rather than podman). I normally prefer the nix way but it doesn’t support every service. I like that nix config is all in one place. In theory, so is docker-compose to am extent but there are usually exceptions and things can get complex. I also hate having to directly manage containers with minimal commandline tools.

But yeah the whole translate config routine in nix is kind of annoying, and I often need to experiment to get the options right if they aren’t documented.

I use proxmox as my hypervisor with:

1. TrueNAS VM
2. Home Assistant OS VM
3. Debian VM for MDAD and MASH, but I’m slowly moving things to Nix when I can.
4. NixOS VM for everything else using compose2nix for services designed for docker and regular systemd services where it makes sense.

Plain old docker compose since it seems to come with by far the fewest surprises and is most widely supported.

Nearly every project of interest has a compose.yml available, which is hardly true for systemd services, nix services, or for podman/kubernetes.

I was using podman-compose briefly, but it is just different enough to break in unclear ways and I kept having to fight with it so I went back to docker docker to eliminate the headache.

I guess I’m weird and use the NixOS options and packages? I just have Jellyfin and Kavita setup currently but I want more.