I have ZERO Server know-how other than I have built them to play about and ten failed miserably at actually doing anything truly useful with them ( Home use purely ).
From what I can gather, the difference with them, is mainly that with a normal VM, you are emulating an entire machine and the operating system. With this, of course you can see the benefits right off cant you?
However with a Docker, it only uses us the resources that it needs for that particular app.
This means that you can in theory, have many more docks using the same resources as only one VM.
For many people who simply play about with virtual machines, it is not going to be that much of an issue, but if you want to run multiple apps, then the dockers will really come through.
I am open to correction, but thats is what I have heard.
I am going to be looking into it sometime soon myself, but as I said... I just VM for a giggle more than anything in any serious capacity.