I run podman containers on my bazzite machines, basically you convert a docker-compose file to a .container file, here's a bunch of examples, nextcloud is there, drop it in ~/.config/containers and run systemctl daemon-reload and it's now a systemd unit that you start stop etc like any other. Updates are with podman autoupdate.

You can use podlet to convert docker-compose files (90% it works, otherwise it gets you 90% of the way there). It's basically the fedora (/redhat) way to run containers.

I have no idea where you got it not being recommended (but adding to the main image sure is discouraged), and it's certainly better than adding a vm for containers, which pretty much defeats the purpose of containers (to run using your main kernel, but contained).

I've been running my arr stack (with gluetun in a pod) etc this way for years now, very trouble free. Here's a immich example.

It's a bit of a learning curve, but it pays off.