I design my base so they can't run very far. My current playthrough I am using the small post office as my horde base since it is close to my home base and I haven't used it before. I got the rear door walled off and the steps knocked out but opened up the front door so it was the preferred route to me. Inside I build steps going up and a walkway where the zombies can come towards me (always giving them a "path" to me). Then I use hatches and Iron bars to create spots were they have to destroy those before they can continue on the path. At that point, I use a combination of molotovs, the knife, and bow to damage kill them (current build is primary agility), with blunderbusses as backup should I need them. This current playthrough I am only 6 days in but I got the bloodmoon horde set at 5 days and max zombies, warrior difficulty (previous playthrough I was at 42 days with the knife. Eventually I couldn't use the knife as effectively during the bloodmoon but that was the same case with the club - too many zombies to kill, resorted to guns).
I don't go out at night typically as I use the time to organize my home base, update my horde base, prepare for the next day. Eventually I am going to do a playthrough where the default speed is running at all time so I will see how effective the knife can be when I don't have preplanned defenses to counter any weaknesses of my weapons.