We have to define what installing software even means. If you install a Flatpak, it basically does the same thing as Docker but somewhat differently. Snaps are similar.
“Installing” software generally means any way that gets the software on your computer semi-permanently and run it. You still end up with its files unpacked somewhere, the main difference with Docker is it ships with the whole runtime environment in the form of a copy of a distro’s userspace.
But fair enough, sometimes you do want to run things directly. Just pointing out it’s not a bad answer, just not the one you wanted due to missing intents from your OP. Some things are so finicky and annoying to get running on the “wrong” distro that Docker is the only sensible way to install it. I run the Unifi controller in a container for example, because I just don’t want to deal with Java versions and MongoDB versions. It just comes with everything it needs and I don’t need to needlessly keep Java 8 around on my main system potentially breaking things that needs a newer version.