The industry is transitioning away from Thunderbolt 3 and embracing Thunderbolt 4. Thunderbolt 5 (on the PC) is here, but not quite ready for prime time. You can call it a laptop dock, a laptop ...
From an Apple user perspective, Thunderbolt 3 and 4 are very similar ... such as old-school USB-A—to your Mac. In general, an “adapter” works with a single port (such as USB-A or Ethernet ...