Well, I learned something new. I didn’t know Portainer supported Podman. I guess it shouldn’t be that surprising, Cockpit does as well.

Any time you’re giving software access to your system you’re increasing attack surface. Even with podman, if you’re running containers properly, the containers have separate users, so your management system is most likely going to need root access. Or at the very least a common group which makes the segregation a moot point.

This topic is always going to be highly personal. Some care, some do not. If you’re only running a media server, then who cares if it’s all lost, but if you’re also hosting all your photos, sensitive documents, etc… It becomes a huge risk for everything to mingle with root access. I can’t imagine anyone would want a third party hanging out behind their firewall regardless.