Baking bread - stainless steel or potless?
In my mind, bread baking containers are divided into two categories:

1- Pans for shape  

Many bread pans are used only to give bread shape. These can very from "normal" loaf pans for sandwich bread to baguette pans.
  



These pans need to just stay out of the way of the heat as much as possible. Baguette pans are even perforated for this reason. They are usually made out of very thin steel and don't need to be expensive at all.

2- Pots for heat and steam

Artisan style bread needs high initial temperatures to produce steam that opens up the bread and builds the crispy crust. It also needs to have a steamy oven during that initial crust-forming period. Consumer ovens don't usually retain heat very well and are not built with steam injectors either.

Putting the bread in a pot helps with both issues. By preheating the pot, the bread will be exposed to a large, pre-charged, thermal mass right at the beginning of baking. Then as steam escapes the loaf it will be held close to the bread and give you a crispy crust.

Pots to do this need to be able to hold a lot of heat so cast iron or ceramic vessels are used. A stainless steel pot with a lid probably wouldn't do very well because it wouldn't hold much heat and would shield the bread from the high heat.

  

Since you mentioned no-knead bread, I would think that you are planning to make artisan style bread rather than soft, sandwich bread. If that is true then I don't think a stainless steel pot would be the best choice. Use either cast iron with a lid, or forgo the pot idea and bake the bread on a pizza stone and spray some water in your oven for steam.