Exactly. From the web page it seems that "isolation" here is basically just installing separate copies of services/libs (php, nginx, etc) under an IndigoStack controlled folder and then running them on a port not already taken by another service. One of the benefits of Docker is explicitly that it does a change root and thus provides an isolated file system in which to run your code. It also creates separate network interfaces for the process to isolate it from your host network.

This has a number of benefits including protecting sensitive files/info in your home folder from rogue dependencies and allowing you to easily toss the dev environment into a black hole once it's no longer needed. If IndigoStack somehow implements isolation using chroot or other MacOS/Darwin equivalents it should be explained on the web page. Otherwise I think the marketing text is misleading:

> Bare metal. With the best of virtualized.

Edit:

I do like the idea of something like IndigoStack though. Being able to describe a dev environment programatically/declaratively and then having something take care of setting that up is nice. If you're a pure MacOS shop then something platform specific like this is probably an okay solution.

"isolation" most likely done by the automagick configuration using different ports...

Different Ports != Isolation..

But hey, marketing.

Interesting that you assumed it's just using different ports, and then judged the author based on your assumption.

There are other ways to achieve process isolation in a Unix environment without relying on Docker or virtualization.

Thanks for giving me the chance to hide under the marketing rock :) But you're right and I will have a good think about what I'm implying by describing it as isolated. "Isolated" means things to me in this context, but it legitimately implies other stuff as raised in this thread, which Indigo does not attempt to do. I don't want to mislead anyone, marketing jargon or not.

via docker and a VM.

It doesn't use docker or a VM