That depends on what kind of containers you are going to run, I guess. Personally, I use LXD for containers, so my hosts run a minimalist image of Ubuntu Server

That depends on what kind of containers you are going to run, I guess. Personally, I use LXD for containers, so my hosts run a minimalist image of Ubuntu Server — as in, without anything that is not required to function. With Ubuntu 20.04 around the corner, it is time to think about upgrading my hosts, so I am thinking about taking a look at Ubuntu Core and using that as a host server for containers. As it is tiny, has a read-only root filesystem, and LXD already run using Snap, it seems to be the perfect candidate. In the end, go with what you know, but keep an eye on what you don't, I guess.