It does not look like there's another option.
The documentation says,
The Log Collector supports two deployment modes:
Container: Runs as a Docker image on Windows, Ubuntu on premises, Ubuntu in Azure, RHEL on premises or CentOS.
Virtual appliance: Runs as an image over Hyper-V or VMware hypervisor (deprecated)
This could be a good feedback item to leave. https://feedback.azure.com/