In my case, I have a desktop PC and a laptop. On the desktop I use Arch Linux and I also use it as my daily machine.

I have some services running already: Pi-hole, Jellyfin, all ok. I also have a VM running Nextcloud, exposed through Tailscale, also working fine. It felt like a good way to be a bit more “professional” and have one VM per service.

Now I want to install Immich. I tested it before, but to use machine learning inside the VM, I need GPU passthrough. From what I understand, I can pass the GPU to the VM, but I cannot share it between the host and multiple VMs at the same time.

My idea was something like this:

For home or local-only services: run them on the host with Docker.

For services that might move to the cloud or to dedicated hardware one day (Nextcloud, Immich, etc): run them in VMs.

Problem: How do you manage GPU access across different VMs? I know that Immich can run the ML service on the host and expose it as an API, but still...

I know every setup is different, but I feel like running everything in Docker on the host might be simpler. I see people here talking about Proxmox, TrueNAS and more complex setups, so it makes me think maybe my setup is not “good enough” or maybe I am missing the benefits others have.

Looking for opinions.