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Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

container-desktop.com

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Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#11

Post by koito17 »

Looks cool, but how is the Kubernetes support? One of the major reasons we use Docker Desktop at work is to host a local Kubernetes cluster with services deployed there. We also support Rancher Desktop since it uses k3s, and k3s is arguably a nicer Kubernetes distribution than the one set up by Docker Desktop.

With that said, I have recently tried OrbStack, and it is able to start up near instantly, while Kubernetes spends at most 2 seconds to start up. The UI is minimal, but it offers just enough to inspect containers, pods, services, logs, etc. It also is very lightweight on memory usage and battery. I personally cannot return to either Docker or Rancher Desktop after having tried OrbStack.

OrbStack also allows using Kubernetes service domains directly on the host. So no need to use kubectl port-forward, and applications running on the host can use identical configuration to what's inside the Kubernetes cluster.

The battery savings, dynamic memory usage, fast startup time, and QOL of OrbStack is pretty much my standard for a Docker Desktop alternative. I am not sure if container-desktop satisfies all of these requirements. (Rancher Desktop certainly doesn't)

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#12

Post by scheme271 »

gnulinux wrote: post #5
dmonitor wrote: post #3

what does this offer that podman desktop does not? https://podman-desktop.io/

Last I checked podman's support of docker-compose.yml was very limited to say the least. Has it changed?

What parts did you find lacking? I haven't had any issues using podman-compose to launch stuff using unmodified docker-compose.yml files.

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#13

Post by linkdd »

koito17 wrote: post #11

Looks cool, but how is the Kubernetes support? One of the major reasons we use Docker Desktop at work is to host a local Kubernetes cluster with services deployed there. We also support Rancher Desktop since it uses k3s, and k3s is arguably a nicer Kubernetes distribution than the one set up by Docker Desktop. With that said, I have recently tried OrbStack, and it is able to start up near instantly, while Kubernetes…

You should check out https://kind.sigs.k8s.io/ and https://k0sproject.io

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#14

Post by fragmede »

veonik wrote: post #6
bradleyy wrote: post #2

While I'm basically fine with Colima on Mac, this seems like a nice alternative to Docker Desktop.

After some initial pains with colima, I tend to agree. Mostly, just needing to specify some VZ args[0] so I could run x86_64 docker images on my M-series. Is there something in these desktop UIs that colima is completely missing? [0] `colima start --vm-type=vz --vz-rosetta`

"some initial pains" = Colima VM running out of resources running kind, so I had to raise the CPU and RAM, and then raise the fd's in the VM itself to get it to work. but now it works!

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#16

Post by manojlds »

moondowner wrote: post #4

I've been using Rancher Desktop as an alternative to Docker Desktop, https://rancherdesktop.io/ on macOS and Windows, it's pretty solid. It has some kinks to work out but I got it working with IDEs too (e.g. the Intellij IDEA Docker Compose integration to work with it). What I also like is that existing scripts and etc that use the docker-compose cli work with Rancher Desktop too, as it uses nerdctl https://github.co…

Yup +1 for Rancher Desktop. Works as smooth as Docker Desktop on MacOS.

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#17

Post by mfenniak »

gnulinux wrote: post #5
dmonitor wrote: post #3

what does this offer that podman desktop does not? https://podman-desktop.io/

Last I checked podman's support of docker-compose.yml was very limited to say the least. Has it changed?

There are two approaches to using compose w/ podman:

Replace docker-compose with podman-compose -- somewhat limited capabilities, but works in a lot of cases.

Use docker-compose against podman w/ podman's system service, which provides a docker compatible API endpoint (https://docs.podman.io/en/v5.2.1/markdown/podman-system-serv...). This basically has full docker-compose capabilities, but, you do need run the socket service as a specific user account which end up running all the pods.

Re: Show HN: Container Desktop – Podman Desktop Companion

#20

Post by corytheboyd »

hnlmorg wrote: post #7

If you’re on macOS, then Orbstack is a nice alternative to Docker Desktop (I’m not affiliated with Orbstack)

I would love to use it but I loathe subscriptions, especially for something I’d need work to pay for. I would happily pay a one-time $50-100 and get a perpetual license so I don’t have to deal with the headache…
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