I do a lot on my M1 air and I haven’t even considered I would have RAM issues with 16GB. Windows, I would be getting 64GB to not be miserable. I don’t run as much as you all the time, but having a container or two going, far too many browser tabs, PDFs, 3-4 intellij projects, discord, teams, and probably other things I am forgetting about is the norm. I even have AutoCAD open sometimes.

The biggest difference is Mx is arm based, which goes a long way into getting better performance and battery life. I really need to look up again how Apple manages memory, swap, and performance in general. I just checked Activity Monitor and even with most of the memory showing as used, I don’t even notice. If my laptop were to die tomorrow due to my clumsy fumbling, I am getting another Mac. My only wish is getting Vulkan support. That would be amazing. Not going to hold my breath on that though.

Now, 8GB is a crime and it is not something I would recommend for any laptop/desktop, no matter what it is running. Not saying it wouldn’t work ok on a Mac for someone who only uses it for web browsing, but it is utterly ridiculous that 8GB is even an option these days. This is a dumb hill for Apple to die on and 16 should be the absolute minimum.

I have a debloated W11 VM on my proxmox server that I have used only once and is only there for some unknown emergency. With a little fiddling, I got it to idle under 4GB. I don’t plan to run servers on my laptop and invested enough on a little server rack to give me things like file servers, VMs, more permanent containers, and somehow got talked into making a gaming VM that I use at LAN parties. The 3U case for the main server travels very well.

Personally, I would try and get some of your server stuff off your machine. You can even take a look at some docker swarm or similar k8 concepts to reduce your container load. RPis are another good choice for some lower load server operations. I have a little RPi swarm that is powered by PoE+, though I plan on trying k8 on them soon to get some experience. RPis are also small enough that you could throw one in your bag if you needed something portable and are fairly inexpensive. Just a thought and may not be possible with your server applications.