Replace these 4 popular Docker containers before they become security risks

Published Oct 6, 2026, 7:00 AM EDT Andrew Heinzman is a seasoned tech writer with over half a decade of experience. He specializes in delivering insightful tech news and detailed product reviews, particularly focusing on audio and video technology, as well as computers and smartphones. His journey in tech writing includes a two-year stint as the News Editor at Review Geek, the former sister site of How-To Geek. Throughout his career, Andrew has consistently provided readers with valuable insights and up-to-date information on the latest developments in the tech world, earning recognition for his clarity, depth, and relevance. In his free time, Andrew likes to explore music and read books, just as he did when earning his bachelor's degree in English literature. Open-source is a promise, not a guarantee. And if you've been homelabbing long enough, there's a good chance that you're running some stale, unmaintained Docker containers. While these containers may be safe to use in the short term, they do pose some long-term risk (or may simply break at some point), so you should disable or replace them as soon as you can. The containers listed in this article are unmaintained or abandoned, meaning that they're at increased risk of falling victim to vulnerabilities and exploits. That said, these containers are not explicitly associated with any CVEs at the time of writing (though Overseerr and Jellyseerr are implicitly tied to some known vulnerabilities, which we'll get to in a second). The original Watchtower Switch to a fork or use one of the many alternatives Credit: Watchtower Watchtower is one of those tools that always gets a shout-out in beginner-level self-hosting guides, and for good reason; it keeps your Docker containers up to date automatically, without altering any of the options you set up at the container's initial deployment. This saves you the trouble of manually updating containers, but more importantly, it ensures that your homelab is up to date on patches and bugfixes. Whether you should automatically update your containers is a different conversation entirely. It's not a perfect practice, as it can put you on the frontline for botched updates that introduce new bugs or other problems. In any case, the containrrr/watchtower repo was archived in 2025. Your original Watchtower instance may still function just fine, but because it has access to the Docker socket, you should replace it with something that's actively maintained. There are several Watchtower forks floating around, including nicholas-fedor/watchtower, which appears to be quite popular. But Watchtower's original developer doesn't recommend any particular forks (and believes that most forks are AI slop), so it may be better to jump ship and use an alternative. WUD (What's Up Docker) is a popular option, as are Dockwatch and the terminal-focused dockcheck. Stale NZBGet images If you've used NZBGet for a while, you might be on an unmaintained version Credit: NZBGet You should check when your NZBGet container was last updated. If you've used this popular Usenet downloader for long enough, there's a very good chance that you're sitting on a years-old version from an abandoned repo—the original NZBGet project was archived in 2022, and several forks were abandoned thereafter. NZBGet is now maintained by NZBGet.com, which has introduced several improvements for the client (including fixes for socket memory leaks). LinuxServer.io also maintains its own version of NZBGet, built on top of the NZBGet.com tree. Of course, SABnzbd is also a good option. It's more beginner-friendly than NZBGet, but it requires slightly more resources, so the former tends to be a better choice for ultra-lightweight hardware. Overseerr and Jellyseerr Migrate to Seerr, it's easier than you'd expect Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek Overseerr and Jellyseerr are by far the most popular media requesting services in the homelab scene, but they were merged into the unified Seerr client in early 2026. It's the same old app, but it offers full integration with Plex, Jellyfin, and Emby. Plus, it's actively maintained—Overseerr and Jellyseerr are not. Thankfully, it's very easy to transition to Seerr. Just spin up the new container and point it at the data and config directories that you're currently using for Overseerr or Jellyseerr. That's the gist of it, though the process may be different depending on your setup (and there are other things you should do during migration, including a quick backup), so please follow the migration guide for detailed instructions. I suggest that you transition to Seerr today, especially if your Overseerr or Jellyseerr containers are exposed through an open port. The Seerr client had a critical security update in early 2026, meaning that Overseerr and Jellyseerr may contain related unpatched vulnerabilities. The original Requestrr It's time to find a new Discord bot Discord is a surprisingly useful yet somewhat niche tool in the homelabbing world. Most people use it to run bots, of course, and local LLMs have accelerated the use of Discord bots in some circles. But tools like Requestrr set the groundwork years ago, offering users a media requesting solution that required very little manual work. But the old darkalfx/requestrr repo was abandoned in 2024. It's since been replaced by the thomst08/requestrr fork, which is a good drop-in solution if that's what you're looking for. (I actually suspect that most homelabbers have switched already, but it looks like the original requestrr image isn't completely broken yet, despite Discord's constant API changes. So, there may be some hangers-on.) This is a good time to point out that Seerr has a Discord notification system built-in, and there are dedicated tools like Discoverr-bot that can pair with Seerr for an enhanced Discord bot experience. If you aren't 100% married to Discord as a solution, or if you need to share your media server with people who are confused by Discord, I suggest going down the Seerr route. Check when your Docker containers were last updated There may be other containers in your homelab that need to be disabled or replaced. My advice is to check when the containers you're running were last updated and work from there. Even if you haven't been homelabbing for a long time, it's possible that you may have set up a container from a deprecated repo without realizing it, especially if you followed an outdated YouTube tutorial or guide when setting things up.