Live data from Hacker News

Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

sacra.com

191–200 of 334 posts

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do the same math for a company with thousands, or tens of thousands, of developers, the answer looks different. Large companies already have dedicated teams for stuff that is a lot less critical than the container runtime. The companies that are too big to avoid paying, but too small to build a replacement, are the ones that are in a jam -- for now. But in a year or two, Podman or Rancher might might fully mee…

Ok, I'll do the math: $250k/yr/developer, so for 1 quarter, that's $62.5k, 3 developers for one quarter is $187.5k. Docker costs $10/mo, or $120/yr, so for 1000 developers, that's $120k/yr, or a payoff time of 1.5 years, assuming nobody ever has to touch anything ever again. Let's say our solution requires 1 developer-quarter per year to maintain - bugfixes, upgrades, deployments, etc. That's $62.5k/yr. That pushes o…

I've had more productivity loss than that from docker's bugs and CPU/battery drain. We don't use docker in prod so why use it for dev? I need a container not this power hungry daemon and annoying UI.

As I type this my laptop is hot because docker needs to be reset and restarted.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#192

Looks like there's a lot of discussion about Docker Desktop alternatives here, so shameless plug: I've been working on a new Linux+Docker+Kubernetes solution for macOS recently! Already has quite a few improvements over existing apps including Docker Desktop, Rancher, Colima, etc: - Fast networking: 30 Gbps! vs. 150 Mbps with Docker VPNKit. Full VPN compatibility, IPv6, ping, ICMP and UDP traceroute, and half-open TC…

I haven't used a mac for quite some time and when I did, I used docker-machine. I recall from my use and from trying to help others that were using docker desktop, it was unusually difficult to make your ssh-agent available in a container.

If that's still an issue, then please figure out a way to make that seamless.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised by this as well, but maybe it was the HN bias that made that impression. My company received the memo from Docker to upgrade to paid version, and I helped many to move on to Podman. However there were teams for which getting a Docker Desktop license was easier than the Podman move. I am sure there are many more companies that can easily afford the convenience of Docker Desktop for a trivial fee.

At work, I developed step by step instructions for using Docker on WSL2, the normal CLI way. People liked it, but figured they liked the GUI better. They also argued that they may as well stick to the GUI because there was a team somewhere else in the company that really insisted they need Docker Desktop, so the company will be buying licenses anyway. (I was already working on those instructions when the pricing chan…

Docker (and podman for that matter) running on WSL2 need serious corporate investment in pairing with wsl-vpnkit or a similar hack, publishing in Software Center and maintaining.

In hindsight, I would say, it costs several man-months of senior engineers' with good connections in various departments.

And this comes on top of productivity losses prior to the solution.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is clearly targeted at macos and windows I didn't know what it was, so I didn't know it was only for macos and windows. If instead of being sarcastic he had just answered my question, I wouldn't have said something irrelevant.

You asked a question which literally has no relevancy to or answer in macOS. There is no apt. There is no default package manager. There is no equivalent command to run on a new system. If you wanted a real answer, you should have asked a real question. Something like, are there any options other than docker desktop for macOS?

[flagged]

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#195
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The friction i have towards buying things i like is very low. As an Apple user i mistakenly convince myself that paying helps get better products[1], and so i don't mind buying products i like. However i have a ton of friction buying products when i don't know that they'll solve my problem. I judge them harshly on that first-buy. [1]: A semi humorous jab at Apple.

And while easy to cancel subscriptions theoretically let you try and get out, the reality is often that something else comes up, maybe you'll try it next month, you're still not sure, you forget about it, and before you know it you've paid quite a bit.

Yea i don't like subscriptions either. For me though i look at it as a long term purchase and i don't like that.

I don't mind licenses like JetBrains though. Ie purchase a year of updates, but it'll keep working regardless. Subscribe to Own also seems decent.. not sure i've used one though.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#196
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just goes to show how what enterprise customers value and what individual developers value are two very different things.

The problem I have with Docker is very simple; to individual users, they provide a service invaluable in a similar vein, though not of similar importance necessarily, to Wikipedia or Archive.org; Docker is literally a utility, which can enable tons of different interactions. The open source community is flooded with different ways to use Docker and take advantage of OCI images and whatnot. I just recently gave distro…

> The problem here is simple; it only provides this immense value if it is effectively free without discrimination. But of course, it can't really just be free, or at least Dockerhub certainly can't be.

This is a self inflicted wound. They placed themselves there but never though about the costs of running a free service with PBs of traffic.

> On the other hand, it also provides immense value to enterprise and even smaller customers, too, clearly

And they should had taken money from enterprise from the day 1 for Hub services.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but then I learned about Docker "eco-system" (especially things like Watchtower) the traffic costs was one of the first things what I though about.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked a question which literally has no relevancy to or answer in macOS. There is no apt. There is no default package manager. There is no equivalent command to run on a new system. If you wanted a real answer, you should have asked a real question. Something like, are there any options other than docker desktop for macOS?

[flagged]

Nobody is talking about that question. You received an answer to it already:

> The thing that I have to install on MacOS so that I can run docker. Is there any other way(i.e no gui utility) ?

We're talking about your subsequent reply asking a further question. A question that has no relevancy to or answer for macOS for reasons already discussed. As I said before, if you wanted a real answer then you should've asked a real question.

> Pro-tip Remove that keybase from your profile, you look ridiculous.

Nobody asked for your unsolicited advice or opinions regarding Keybase or ones' use of it in their profile, thanks.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#198
When they started charging for Docker Desktop I immediately uninstalled it and just installed the cli-client on my mac machine, and started running Docker itself in an Ubuntu VM and set the $DOCKER_HOST on the host machine and do everything in the CLI. The only reason I use $DOCKER_HOST at all is because I'm just too lazy to have an SSH session constantly open to the vm to run docker commands, otherwise I would just install the docker snap in Ubuntu and call it a day and use it directly.

My company is still small enough that we could use Docker Desktop for free, but I refuse to get sucked into such a shitty value proposition.

I question your competence if you can't run docker commands in a terminal and think $5 per month for a lousy electron app that wraps the commands with some buttons is good value. The fact they they are making $135M ARR and the company is valued at over a billion dollars is absolutely insane when superior alternatives that are Free exist.

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#199
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with Docker is very simple; to individual users, they provide a service invaluable in a similar vein, though not of similar importance necessarily, to Wikipedia or Archive.org; Docker is literally a utility, which can enable tons of different interactions. The open source community is flooded with different ways to use Docker and take advantage of OCI images and whatnot. I just recently gave distro…

Docker Desktop is a godsend. I live most of my developing life in my terminal, but the ability to glance into what's going on in different services along with mounts, environment variables and logging is invaluable.

I honestly can't relate very much. I can understand how it would help to be able to see the full breadth of what information there is to go along with containers, but A. I find Docker Desktop to be kind of annoying B. I actually feel like the CLI tool is well organized enough that it is not a problem to quickly grok what information I need using easy-to-remember commands.

That said, Podman Desktop[1] does most of this stuff and it's free. Maybe it isn't as polished (Docker has definitely put a lot of engineering into the filesystem stuff on macOS for example) but to me it looks similarly nice to Docker Desktop. So if you are working as an individual and don't want to deal with licensing restrictions, there is a reasonable alternative at least.

[1]: https://podman-desktop.io/

Re: Docker 2.0 went from $11M to $135M in 2 years

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me about this is the math doesn't make any sense. Docker charges $10/developer/month. Those developers are paid $150k+/yr, fully loaded to the company (insurance, taxes, accounting, etc) is probably double that, but call it $250k/yr to be nice. You take 3 developers and have them spend a quarter on replacing Docker Desktop, that's nearly $200k in developer costs spent replacing a tool that's gonna cost your…

This article from 2013 might give an indication on why some people choose FOSS even when they can afford the non-FOSS solutions: The licensing. My God, the licensing. It's not so much the money, as the infernal, mind-bending tax code level complexity involved in making sure all your software is properly licensed: determining what 'level' and 'edition' you are licensed at, who is licensed to use what, which servers ar…

I concur. It just reduces friction and overhead.

However license management and compliance might be easier if you go with apps from an app store like Apple/MS/Steam/etc..

Post reply on HN