Docker Desktop Alternatives for Enterprise Users

Docker has changed its Service Agreement and requires a paid subscription for Docker Desktop. It is a popular tool used by many developers to manage containers on their Mac. However, some users may want to explore alternatives to Docker Desktop / Docker for various reasons, such as performance issues or the desire for daemonless docker. Two possible alternatives to Docker Desktop on a Mac are Podman and Colima. In this blog, I just wanted to quickly document my experience on try out these two alternatives as well as the pros and cons of each.

Replacing Docker Desktop with Podman on Mac

Podman is a container management tool that allows users to manage containers without requiring a daemon to be running in the background. It is an open-source project developed by Red Hat and provides a CLI that is compatible with Docker.

Install Podman: Podman can be installed on a Mac using Homebrew. Open a terminal window and enter the following commands:

brew install podman

brew install podman-completion

This will install Podman and its completion script.

Start using Podman: Once Podman is installed, you can start using it to manage your containers. To run a container, use the podman run command. For example, to run a simple hello-world container, enter the following command in the terminal:

podman run hello-world

Pros and Cons of Podman

Pros:

• Podman does not require a daemon to be running in the background, which can improve performance and security.
• Podman provides a Docker-compatible CLI, making it easy to switch from Docker to Podman.
• Podman supports rootless containers, which allows non-root users to run containers.

Cons:

• Podman is not as widely used as Docker, so finding support or tutorials may be more difficult.
• Podman does not currently support Docker Compose, although this may change in the future.

Note: I had issues with volume mounting in podman, but looks like passing the mount to podman machine during its creation fixes it. For ex,

podman machine init --disk-size 20 -v \$HOME:$HOME

podman machine start

Replacing Docker Desktop with Colima on Mac

Colima is a Docker and Kubernetes development environment for Mac. It is built on top of macOS Hypervisor framework and provides a lightweight, native experience for managing containers.

To replace Docker Desktop with Colima on a Mac, follow these steps:

Install Colima: Colima can be downloaded from the official website. Once downloaded, open the DMG file and drag the Colima app to the Applications folder.

Start using Colima: Once Colima is installed, open the app and follow the setup instructions. You can then start using Colima to manage your containers.

Pros and Cons of Colima

Pros:

• Colima provides a lightweight, native experience for managing containers on a Mac.
• Colima supports Docker Compose and Kubernetes, making it a versatile tool for container management.
• Colima provides a web-based interface for managing containers, which can be more user-friendly than a CLI.

Cons:

• Colima is a relatively new tool and may have bugs or compatibility issues. C- olima is not as widely used as Docker, so finding support or tutorials may be more difficult.

Conclusion

Replacing Docker Desktop with Podman or Colima on a Mac is relatively easy, and both tools offer certain pros and cons. Podman is a lightweight tool that provides a Docker-compatible CLI, while Colima provides a native, web-based interface for managing containers. Ultimately, the choice of which tool to use depends on the user.