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It's virtual machines but faster, more configurable with a considerably larger set of automation, and it consumes less computer resources than a traditional VM. Additionally, in software development it helps solve a problem summarized as "works on my machine." A lot of traditional server creation and management relied on systems that need to be set up perfectly identical every deployment to prevent dumb defects based on whose machine was used to write it on. With Docker, it's stupid easy to copy the automated configuration from "my machine" to "your machine." Now everyone, including the production systems, are running from "my machine." That's kind of a big deal, even if it could be done in other ways naturally on Linux operating systems. They don't have the ease of use or the same shareability.
What you're doing is perfectly expected. That's a great way of getting around using Docker. You aren't forced into using it. It's just easier for most people
This is exactly the answer.
I'd just expand on one thing: many systems have multiple apps that need to run at the same time. Each app has its own dependencies, sometimes requiring a specific version of a library.
In this situation, it's very easy for one app to need v1 of MyCleverLibrary (and fails with v2) and another needs v2 (and fails with v1). And then at the next OS update, the distro updates to v2.5 and breaks everything.
In this situation, before containers, you will be stuck, or have some difficult workrounds including different LD_LIBRARY_PATH settings that then break at the next update.
Using containers, each app has its own libraries at the correct and tested versions. These subtle interdependencies are eliminated and packages 'just work'.
I approve of this expanded answer. I may have been too ELI5 in my post.
If the OP has read this far, I'm not telling you to use docker, but you could consider it if you want to store all of your services and their configurations in a backup somewhere on your network so if you have to set up a new raspberry pi for any reason, now it's a simple sequence of docker commands (or one docker-compose command) to get back up and running. You won't need to remember how to reinstall all of the dependencies.