There is barely any overhead with a Linux VM, a Debian minimal install only uses about 30MB of RAM! As an end user i find performance to be very similar with either setup.
I run debian on everything, so I set up unattended-upgrades for security updates and basically forget about it. Docker updates are also automatic with Komodo, just make sure databases are pinned to a major version.
For monitoring my services I use Uptime Kuma, and get an alert if a service goes down so I can fix it.
Been pretty solid for years now. Things get rebooted every month or two when I do a Proxmox upgrade and reboot the host.
At least you can just snap a bigger battery into it, vs those crappy ones from Dyson or Samsung and whoever with the tiny little battery packs you can't upgrade.
For local access you can use 127.0.0.1:80:80 and it won't put a hole in your firewall.
Or if your database is access by another docker container, just put them on the same docker network and access via container name, and you don't need any port mapping at all.
The only thing I really have to make sure of is that the deployment environment has node and the angular CLI installed
That's why Docker is popular. Making sure every single system running your app has the correct versions of node and angular installed is a royal pain in the butt.
I must be out of it, I didn't realize we were counted as kids until we turn 75