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The decision really comes down to two things: what hardware you already have running, and whether you want to run Pi-hole as a dedicated service or alongside other containers. Use the native install (Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu, or Proxmox LXC) if: You want a dedicated Pi-hole instance with minimal other services running on it You’re running Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi or any Debian-based Linux distribution You’re running it in a Proxmox LXC and don’t need Docker on top You want the simplest, most-supported setup with the least amount of moving parts Use the Docker install if: You already use Docker

Most people should keep Pi-hole reasonably current. Security patches matter for anything that handles network traffic, and the Pi-hole team is good about not breaking things in updates. That said, “update immediately when a new version drops” isn’t always the right call either. If everything is working, there’s no specific feature you need, and you don’t have time to deal with potential issues, waiting a few weeks to let any release issues surface in the community is reasonable. The Pi-hole subreddit and forums usually surface bugs quickly.