Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by y0ssar1an on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:03AM (#47153362)

The best alternative to Docker Desktop on macOS is to abandon the GUI entirely use colima to create the linux VM.

    brew install colima docker docker-buildx docker-completion docker-compose
    export DOCKER_HOST="$HOME/.colima/docker.sock" >> ~/.zshrc
    source ~/.zshrc
    colima start --cpus 8 --vz-rosetta --ssh-agent --mount $HOME:w

then add this line to your $HOME/.docker/config.json

    "cliPluginsExtraDirs": ["/opt/homebrew/lib/docker/cli-plugins"],

that will get you a fast virtiofs VM with the latest docker, including compose and buildx. it may seem scary to replace an officially blessed tool like Docker Desktop, but i have had zero issues with colima. it isn't "docker compatible". it's docker. just need to run `brew upgrade` and `colima update` every once in a while to keep it up to date.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by eknkc on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:50AM (#47154084)

I’ve been using OrbStack instead of Docker Desktop and gotta say, I’d not replace it with anything else. So if anyones looking for a more automated alternative, check out OrbStack.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by cathalc on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:55AM (#47154151)

I hear great things about OrbStack; unfortunately the licensing tied to their free offering doesn't play nicely with corporate environments (and we're cheap!).

I switched to Colima instead and couldn't be happier.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by stock_toaster on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @12:09PM (#47154328)

I you fancy needing a GUI, rancher desktop is decent.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by jaimehrubiks on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:07AM (#47153427)

Does this support volume bind mounts and port forwarding?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by Alifatisk on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @11:32AM (#47153808)

You can see the command above mounting a volume

”—mount $HOME:w”

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by seemaze on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @01:16PM (#47155404)

If you're going full CLI on macOS, I've had the best experience with:

    brew install podman

Podman manages the linux vm for you automatically.

I've come to enjoy podman more than docker on my linux hosts anway; the default runtime (crun) is lighter than docker (runc), podman-kube-play is great for managing multi-container pods and is compatible with kubernetes. It also integrates very neatly with systemd. Of course there is the whole daemon-less and rootless side of the things as well..

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by hmokiguess on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @01:18PM (#47155432)

Same, been running on colima for years now and haven't had a single issue with it

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by jpalmer on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @01:19PM (#47155446)

I've been using Finch (https://runfinch.com/) for the last few years, it basically is a managed Lima, nerdctl, containerd and BuildKit.

I just alias docker to finch and it just works.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by a456463 on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @02:19PM (#47156404)

Thank you!!! Been struggling with time skew on Podman desktop for around a year now with no fix in sight. At least in the initial test since I saw your comment a few hours ago, this is working great!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podma... by raulparada on Wednesday February 25, 2026 @04:01PM (#47157802)

Tried Podman about a month ago; UI was kinda meh, 'compose' was beyond unusable... then tried Colima (+ lazydocker, a lightweight, beautiful TUI providing the little overview I need) and haven't looked back for a single second.

[ Parent | on HN ]