VMs are great. I've been using them for work stuff since Hardware virtualisation made it practical to run VMs with little or no performance penalty.
That said, swapping from Docker to VMs for things is nowhere near as simple or straightforward.
The near-frictionless ability to stand up/tear-down a 'known' good image and configuration, with the ability to swap in/out networking, volume or other environmental configuration is what made Docker so popular.
We use Docker containers for a wide range of things, and while we could reproduce all of that as VMs - it would take a lot more effort, and it would introduce a lot more delays waiting to build/replace a VM.
That said, swapping from Docker to VMs for things is nowhere near as simple or straightforward.
The near-frictionless ability to stand up/tear-down a 'known' good image and configuration, with the ability to swap in/out networking, volume or other environmental configuration is what made Docker so popular.
We use Docker containers for a wide range of things, and while we could reproduce all of that as VMs - it would take a lot more effort, and it would introduce a lot more delays waiting to build/replace a VM.