Docker/podman are not virtualisation, they are containerisation. The system groups all the processes into a namespace and executes them on the same host/kernel as the base system. There is no overhead of virtualisation as its not creating virtual hardware or running a whole OS. Its more like the flatpak you’re already running than a vm
what’s your plan on teaching these people to maintain their selfhosted instances? Are you selling support? I mean you could script pulling and recreating containers, but without eyeballs on it, that stuff will die eventually.