I think OP is saying Proxmox isn't really that complicated compared to K8. I guess my perspective is warped since I know what I'm doing pretty well, but install

I think OP is saying Proxmox isn't really that complicated compared to K8. I guess my perspective is warped since I know what I'm doing pretty well, but installing Proxmox and setting up some basic VMs or LXC containers (especially if you use the helper scripts) isn't that hard. Sure, there is still some added complexity, but I think that's more than offset by the ease of doing backups alone. Meanwhile, my experiences with K8s have all been mostly painful and I didn't really feel like I gained anything to offset the complexity versus just using Docker (for my personal use, obviously K8 makes sense at enterprise scale or if you use your homelab for learning).