True that one is indeed a bit overkill compared to MCUs, but I’ve worked with it extensively and it I indeed able to be used bare metal through xboot/awboot. It’s larger cousins like the v851s and T113-S3 aren’t as easy though.

The cheapest thing you could still run linux on would probably be an Allwinner F1C100s, you can get those in bulk for about 2 £

Not everything needs to be a container, I’ve got separate machines doing separate things, sometimes going native is easier to maintain…