HA OS is the way to go.

You don’t want to have to think about it. HA OS just works. You set it up and let it run.

There’s no sense in trying to kerfuffle other things into it. You don’t want to do too much on the Pi anyway because it’ll lower the responsiveness of Home Assistant slightly. If you want a server that does things, buy a separate NAS and run it alongside HA OS.

I run my own a VM.

I was sceptical about running in a OS that I can’t run my normal updates and automations on but HA OS has been rock solid and easy. Plus you get a few more features

I recommend HA OS. What happened to me is that I used docker, got everything set up how I liked it, then had to move over to HA OS when I needed a specific add on and didn’t have any other solution.

If you don’t already have a plan for other services, might not make sense to use docker, too.

I’ve run both, and the OS version is much more stable and easier to keep running. Whether you use an rpi or a VM, use the dedicated OS and save yourself the heartache of trying to get your hardware working with docker.

You can go supervised! You still have most of the operating system available to your needs and you can still use add-ons. I use it for years and it works like a charm

I’m running the docker version as I’m also using the rpi for other things, like imageview and pi hole. I don’t really miss addons, the only annoying thing is that most documentation assumes you’re running ha os.

But if you don’t plan to use it for anything else than HA, I’d go for HA OS.

I run the docker because it’s really easy to migrate to another machine if I needed. I just rsync the data and re-run the yaml on the new machine and I’m back up within seconds.

I run HA OS and from my experience updating and installing add-ons is seamless. Creating backups and restoring (had to replace a corrupt SD Card a while ago) was also no issue.
Add-ons I have installed

• Advanced SSH Terminal
• ESP Home
• Home Assistant Google Drive Backup
• VS Code Server
• Maria DB

HACS for a few integrations:

• YT Music Player
• Waste Collection Schedule

nothing too fancy.

I run a second Pi with an SSD for docker containers or native OS installs (gitea, drone-ci, pi-hole, etc.)

I used a ton of AddOns, really practical because they also embed themselves easily into the rest of Home Assistant. I would go for the HA OS. But I also do wish there was a AddOn to install random docker images.

There’s nothing that you can’t do with docker that you can do with addons, but many things you can do with docker that you can’t do with addons.

Addons are marginally easier to setup but if you have technical skills, docker is also not a lot of work. You can use something like Portainer to get a similar easy interface. So I think it’s down to if you have the technical skills for docker.

I run ha supervised and I do both, but the system does complain that I do that.

I’d always run HAOS. When you need Docker containers which are not available as add-ons I would look for a machine that can run Proxmox so you can run a Docker VM and a HAOS vm in parallel.

home assistant in docker is definitely not for the feint of heart! the networking requirements are actually quite intense, and really don’t map well to virtual networks like dockers uses

… among other issues

HAOS on a pi; i’ve tried the docker thing time and time again, and the next chance i get in blowing it all away and starting on real hardware again

I have HA running in docker on a Pi 3 and Z-wave JS running in another on the same Pi. Added a purpleair integration for outdoor air quality, national weather service, some local sensors, and sql to get data from another node. People have made me paranoid about SD card failures, so I regularly image it to my main server. I mostly use HA to visualize environmental data, but it also runs the lights in a hydroponic farm and the house during vacations, via z-wave outlets. Have not tried to integrate it with google or amazon.

The only inconveniences I’ve found with docker is that you can’t restart HA from its web interface and, if you update regularly, old images quickly fill a smaller card, so you have to remember to purge.

Imho, for the vast vast vast majority of people, you should pick the lowest management solution for a long running home server. In an ideal world every home appliance is like an oven, something that always works, cleans itself, and requires no obligations of you the owner. Of course some things don’t work like that, knives need sharpening, cast iron pans need seasoning, wood cutting boards need oiling, but when it comes to home server software it’s entirely possible to design it so that it’s more like an oven, updating itself, always running, and never requiring anything of you the owner other than keeping it plugged in. That’s what HAOS is, and I would rather buy more Pis / old laptops and just run them side by side rather than deal with a whole extra management layer and critically timed updates and stuff.

Used to use it on Truenas as a plugin, but that was quite difficult to keep updated. So I put the OS on the Pi that I had laying around and it’s been a lot more stable and easier to maintain. Keep in mind to use a external SSD instead of an SD card though, the SD card will fail too quickly.