16GB is worth it for Docker.

Yes, if you plan to run more than one or two containers at a time.

Each container eats memory for its process, plus whatever the base image needs. Even lightweight containers stack up fast. With 8GB, you’re fine for a Pi-hole, a simple web server, maybe a database. But add a monitoring stack, a media server, or a couple of side projects, and you’ll start swapping. Swap kills performance on a home server.

16GB gives you real headroom. You can run whatever you want without thinking about memory. And RAM is cheap these days. I’d rather spend $30 now than spend an afternoon debugging why my containers are crawling.

If this is a throwaway experiment, stick with 8GB. If you actually depend on this server—go 16GB. Future you will thank you when you decide to add one more container without thinking twice.