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Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

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Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#61

Post by greenicon »

pmig wrote: post #21
noodlesUK wrote: post #5

I think many of these issues are also solved by Podman and systemd depending on what kind of "production" you're building for. If you're building a linux-y appliance and you need to run a few containers I think Podman is a much better and more ergonomic way of doing so. I think perhaps that's less true for running a web service (where the linux environment is just a means to that end).

What are the benefits of running Podman Compose instead of Docker Compose? I don't see how it helps with orphan containers, logs and mutable tags.

Docker (Compose) has some quirks compared to Podman (Compose), e.g. when using gvisor or a lot of internal networks. Depending on what you do your milage will vary, though.

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#62

Post by nathanmills »

gchamonlive wrote: post #30
2ndorderthought wrote: post #11

Should you have a turkey sandwich for lunch in 2026? I don't know buddy just do whatever. There are ten thousand other sandwiches you could eat surely, but does turkey sound good for you?

> does turkey sound good for you? What if you can't by yourself objectively evaluate if turkey sandwich sounds good? It's not a matter of giving a universal answer to whether docker compose in production is fine, but how to evaluate it. Which features or safeguards necessary for a healthy production environment you forfeit when choosing plain docker compose? What's the tradeoff?

Then you either need to try it or research it. Other people can't tell you if you like turkey or not.

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#63

Post by nickjj »

Docker Compose was production ready in 2015 and it still is today. I've lost track of how many projects I've deployed with it and never really ran into a single issue where Docker Compose was at fault. It's super solid.

Some time ago I've written about my experiences using it in production https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/why-i-like-using-docker-compo.... Not just for my own projects but for $500 million dollar companies and more.

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#64

Post by nijave »

stevefan1999 wrote: post #52

I really want something that is Docker Compose but for Kubernetes. I mean that I can have a simple way to declaring resources in just like Docker Compose, but I run the environment in Kubernetes so that I can get to test the behaviors when there are multiple copies of the softwares running together. I do rely on Kubernetes heavily for distributed and networked software deployment, so it is even better if we can emula…

Helm mostly does that. Not a huge fan of a text templating engine generating yaml but once you get your chart setup with a few variable inputs, you can continue using it for a bunch of other stuff with minimal new config.

The inputs (values) are yaml so you can make it look exactly like a Docker Compose file if you want (wouldn't be surprised if there's some charts floating around that do that)

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#65

Post by pmig »

stevefan1999 wrote: post #52

I really want something that is Docker Compose but for Kubernetes. I mean that I can have a simple way to declaring resources in just like Docker Compose, but I run the environment in Kubernetes so that I can get to test the behaviors when there are multiple copies of the softwares running together. I do rely on Kubernetes heavily for distributed and networked software deployment, so it is even better if we can emula…

This is a problem we, as a company, have thought about a lot, but we always concluded that Kubernetes is already the simplest abstraction of a distributed system that is feasible for the diverse needs that the biggest companies out there have.

We previously built a package manager for Kubernetes to abstract it in the simplest way possible `glasskube install app` but we failed because every abstraction needs to follow a "convention over configuration" pattern at some point. Also, we weren't able to monetize a package manager.

With Distr (https://github.com/distr-sh/distr), we have actually been able to help companies not only package but distribute and either manage or give their customers a way to self-manage applications. Our customers are able to land on-premises contracts at enterprises way faster than before, which is also a clear ROI for paying for Distr.

So, I don't think that you can get the flexibility of a distributed application orchestrator with a simple declarative YAML file if your target environments are diverse.

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#66

Post by nijave »

merpkz wrote: post #57

How do you guys, who run Docker in production deal with managing nftables firewall on hosts running containers? By design docker daemon creates and manages a set of firewall rules to forward traffic between containers and ingress traffic into containers as well as masquarades the outgoing container traffic. That is all well until admin needs to alter hosts firewall to allow and deny other traffic unrelated to docker…

I don't. I'd run other workloads on separate hosts

Re: Should I run plain Docker Compose in production in 2026?

#68

Post by gchamonlive »

nathanmills wrote: post #62
gchamonlive wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does turkey sound good for you? What if you can't by yourself objectively evaluate if turkey sandwich sounds good? It's not a matter of giving a universal answer to whether docker compose in production is fine, but how to evaluate it. Which features or safeguards necessary for a healthy production environment you forfeit when choosing plain docker compose? What's the tradeoff?

Then you either need to try it or research it. Other people can't tell you if you like turkey or not.

So we agree people shouldn't write off these posts with "does turkey sandwich sounds good to you" like it's some deep insight to default to the trivial answer?
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