Virtualization technologies are a foundational component of modern computing infrastructures, enabling efficient resource utilization, workload isolation, and scalable service deployment. While enterprise data centers widely employ both virtual machines and container-based virtualization, recent advancements in consumer-grade hardware have facilitated the adoption of virtualization technologies in personal servers, homelabs, and small-scale self-hosted environments. This study presents a comprehensive empirical comparison between Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtual machines and Docker containers deployed on modern consumer-grade hardware. Performance evaluation was conducted using standardized benchmarking tools, including Sysbench, Flexible I/O Tester (FIO), and iperf3, to assess CPU performance, memory utilization, storage I/O throughput, and network efficiency. Experiments were repeated multiple times, and results were reported using mean values and standard deviations to ensure statistical reliability. The findings demonstrate that Docker containers consistently achieve near-native performance with significantly lower resource overhead compared to KVM virtual machines. While virtual machines provide stronger isolation and operating system flexibility, containers offer superior efficiency for resource-constrained environments. The results contribute practical insights for developers, educators, and system administrators in selecting appropriate virtualization technologies for consumer-level deployments.