Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
1–10 of 81 posts
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#2My Podman starts containers in arch x86-64-v3 with rosetta on for 27 seconds which Docker does it in 9s. I wonder what's wrong. I've already upgraded Mac to Tahoe (which has x86-64-v3 support included into rosetta)
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#3I tried to use podman desktop for a bit but I ran into some screwy compatibility issues. It just wasn't as smooth as docker.
I really really want an alternative to docker desktop. I don't like the path they're going down. I don't like the AI crap in the UI. The licensing is crazy. It just doesn't feel right.
So I've been lately using rancher by SuSE. Surprisingly, it's been all right. So far it just works. I'm using this on Mac OS.
If anybody's looking for an alternative that's one worth considering.
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#4I personally prefer the Podman CLI however as you don't need the daemon running in the background and prefer Kubernetes like yamls for local development. I definitely don't need a polished desktop GUI that shows me how many images I have though - I've never understood the use case for that.
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#5I tried to use podman desktop for a bit but I ran into some screwy compatibility issues. It just wasn't as smooth as docker. I really really want an alternative to docker desktop. I don't like the path they're going down. I don't like the AI crap in the UI. The licensing is crazy. It just doesn't feel right. So I've been lately using rancher by SuSE. Surprisingly, it's been all right. So far it just works. I'm using…
What sort of compatibility issues were you encountering? (disclaimer: I'm on the Podman Desktop team)
If it was compose + docker compatibility issues, that's on the roadmap for improvement :). Compose support is flakey at times (it's essentially a wrapper around the open source binary https://github.com/docker/compose)
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#6I tried to use podman desktop for a bit but I ran into some screwy compatibility issues. It just wasn't as smooth as docker. I really really want an alternative to docker desktop. I don't like the path they're going down. I don't like the AI crap in the UI. The licensing is crazy. It just doesn't feel right. So I've been lately using rancher by SuSE. Surprisingly, it's been all right. So far it just works. I'm using…
I also like that Rancher Desktop supports nerdctl. Colima is another similar project.
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#7I tried to use podman desktop for a bit but I ran into some screwy compatibility issues. It just wasn't as smooth as docker. I really really want an alternative to docker desktop. I don't like the path they're going down. I don't like the AI crap in the UI. The licensing is crazy. It just doesn't feel right. So I've been lately using rancher by SuSE. Surprisingly, it's been all right. So far it just works. I'm using…
What sort of compatibility issues were you encountering? (disclaimer: I'm on the Podman Desktop team) If it was compose + docker compatibility issues, that's on the roadmap for improvement :). Compose support is flakey at times (it's essentially a wrapper around the open source binary https://github.com/docker/compose )
The most common one I run into is with volumes, when the full path doesn't already exist. Docker will just make the path, Podman throws an error. It's been called a "bug" in docker but the fact is everyone just expects the paths to be created. I want it to just work, not make everyone in the industry redo their dockerfiles to be "correct."
https://github.com/containers/podman/issues/6234
It looks like there was some work done to resolve this in 2023 and 2024 but I know this was still happening for me in mid 2025. Podman is technically correct here but functionally broken in a way that keeps pushing me away because I don't have time to deal with that :(
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#8My Podman starts containers in arch x86-64-v3 with rosetta on for 27 seconds which Docker does it in 9s. I wonder what's wrong. I've already upgraded Mac to Tahoe (which has x86-64-v3 support included into rosetta)
Ahhh, one of the reasons could be that Docker Desktop by default uses 50% of your RAM when they create their VM and the maximum amount of CPUs.
Podman Desktop by default has a much lower RAM (4GB) + CPU usage (50% CPU). That's something that could be improved... I've opened up an issue: https://github.com/podman-desktop/podman-desktop/issues/1634... :)
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#9I love podman. it’s my default whenever i need to run containers locally. Ive also used it to run containerized systemd services.
Selling enterprise licenses is a smart move from Redhat: they actually build/contribute to production grade container orchestration platforms like openshift. Unlike Docker Inc which looks like it only has the docker registry and Docker Desktop.
Re: Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build
#10I tried to use podman desktop for a bit but I ran into some screwy compatibility issues. It just wasn't as smooth as docker. I really really want an alternative to docker desktop. I don't like the path they're going down. I don't like the AI crap in the UI. The licensing is crazy. It just doesn't feel right. So I've been lately using rancher by SuSE. Surprisingly, it's been all right. So far it just works. I'm using…
Another alternative (although Mac OS-only) is [0] OrbStack. Some devs in my team are running it as a more performant alternative to Docker Desktop for Mac and they are very happy so far.
[0]: https://orbstack.dev