Made a point not to install Docker on this machine. Honestly loved it when I first tried it.

Usually have like 20-25 tabs open in safari, a VS Code instance (sometimes two), a Nextjs app + express backend running against a local Postgres. This is always in the yellow memory pressure range for me.

If I close the browser or just stick with a few tabs it’s all good, but when each tab can suck 100s of MB it quickly adds up. It’s a workflow my 2014 MBP with 16GB still handles though so I don’t feel like my expectations are too high.

Because ppl use Docker, even when it's not really that necessary... I'm using Nix for the past few years and it has obviated the need for Docker. I have simple shell.nix files, which are activated via direnv and that's it; 0 runtime overhead, no need to install various java/node/python/ruby version managers.

What actually feasts on memory is the various chat apps and project management and knowledge-base management software, in-browser email clients, github pages, JetBrains IDEs.

You should keep these closed, whenever u can and then 8GB is enough comfortably. You will still receive Slack notifications on your phone, then u can fire up Slack to reply or have a discussion. Same with Notion or Logseq. You don't need to have a gmail tab open all the time either. The built-in Mail.app might just be enough for you too, which might eat slightly less memory. You can use Sublime Text or Emacs for editing, instead of VS Code or WebStorm. Install a browser-tab suspender extension. Download technical docs and read them via Dash (or whatever open-source equivalent it has). Have you looked into how much memory does a github.com page eats?

You need 8GB just to run "modern" web applications, let alone develop them.

I have M1 with 8GB, it can't handle basic node.js/react app. I have to force kill node and start again every few hours. This with just browsers and apple music playing.

Running a more or less complete stack of the backend can be a lot of containers.

Docker

I want to make fun of javascript here

That certainly hasn't been my experience on my M1 Max MBP. When it swaps, I can immediately tell.