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
"cliPluginsExtraDirs": ["/opt/homebrew/lib/docker/cli-plugins"],
I just alias docker to finch and it just works.
brew install podman
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..
I switched to Colima instead and couldn't be happier.
”—mount $HOME:w”
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.
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)
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 :(
https://github.com/containers/buildah/issues/6460
Also, there’s Podman’s decision to drop CNI support. Sure, I get that they want to support the full stack, but netavark is really not especially capable, and CNI allows all kinds of interesting (and frequently overcomplicated) things.
https://github.com/podman-desktop/podman-desktop/issues/1035...
Basically I had a 5 second periodic CPU spike after some update. Also I had some compose issues, and some issue with Fedora based WSL. These together were blockers for me at that point, but I'm using podman on my pet Fedora server, and it works (using quadlets there) perfectly there, and will retry it on Windows also when I get the time.
I would love a way to have Podman installable in userspace meaning in a non-admin account, or installable without brew, or with a dependency list such as QEMU or whatever else needs to be installed by an admin ahead of time, or with a sudousers config list, etc.
I know this is an atypical setup. Any advice from anyone here is much appreciated about multi-user non-admin macOS container setup for Podman or Docker or equivalent.
I also have heard a lot of recommendations for OrbStack, but I haven't had problems with speed either. And I could never stomach using a proprietary system for such a core part of my workflow.
For context I use containers for practically everything and I run some decently complex workflows on them: fullstack node codebases, networking, persistent volumes, mounting, watch mode, etc. Red Hat knocked it out of the park with podman!
I've also experienced Podman "getting stuck" sometimes: it's just running a build, but ctrl+c somehow doesn't stop the build system and instead freezes Podman. Doesn't really happen with Docker.
[0]: https://orbstack.dev
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.
I wish we had tax exceptions for companies maintaining open-source projects full time to be reasonable write offs or something, with strict checks so companies dont just make random "open source" projects to write off, it should be something with known sizable impact and/or use, it would make some critical open source projects attractive "buy outs" or options to fully fund for some of these giants that benefit from them. Imagine if the devs entire salary (up to a point) could be written off completely. Some of these people are working on key infrastructure for the modern web, and even other critical systems, think of Chromium (tricky because of Chrome being not-open source but a proprietary end-product), Firefox, Linux, openssl, and obviously Docker, as good example.
How ? Docker didn't invent the underlying technology and can't control it (through patents, etc...). It's all open and Docker tools are just the most popular but there are alternatives. Why pay when you can get it for free ?
Podman isn't really a competitor at this point, it's just the "docker at home" NIH project from redhat. It works fine, but docker isn't going anywhere really.
Key differences from the tools mentioned here: - Native macOS app (SwiftUI, no Electron) — uses Lima under the hood as a lightweight VM runtime instead of Docker Desktop's bundled VM. No Electron, no heavy resource usage. - Built-in Compose visual builder — edit your docker-compose.yml visually - K8s management alongside Docker in the same UI - Zero dependencies beyond Apple frameworks
Free tier covers basic container management. Happy to answer questions.
Key differences from the tools mentioned here: - Native macOS app (SwiftUI, no Electron) — uses Lima under the hood as a lightweight VM runtime instead of Docker Desktop's bundled VM. No Electron, no heavy resource usage. - Built-in Compose visual builder — edit your docker-compose.yml visually
Free tier covers basic container management. Happy to answer questions.
Are there any material differences between this and the free OSS Podman Desktop[1] released 4 years ago?
0: https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-build-pod... 1: https://podman-desktop.io/
[~]$ podman pull --arch=amd64 debian:13
Resolved "debian" as an alias (/etc/containers/registries.conf.d/000-shortnames.conf)
Trying to pull docker.io/library/debian:13...
Getting image source signatures
Copying blob sha256:866771c43bf5eb77362eeeb163c0c825e194c2806d0b697028434e3b9c02f59d
Copying config sha256:a3624ddeb711bef28c29e6de1502fc3ef9df132c220d1db5a121b2a1e2a74256
Writing manifest to image destination
a3624ddeb711bef28c29e6de1502fc3ef9df132c220d1db5a121b2a1e2a74256
[~]$ time podman run --rm -ti debian:13 uname -m
WARNING: image platform (linux/amd64) does not match the expected platform (linux/arm64)
x86_64
podman run --rm -ti debian:13 uname -m 0.03s user 0.02s system 9% cpu 0.456 totalHowever when running a spring boot over eclipse-temurin:25-jdk-ubi10-minimal image there is this huge difference
podman run 0.02s user 0.01s system 0% cpu 24.960 total
% podman machine inspect podman-machine-default
...
"Rootful": true,
"Rosetta": true
}
]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... :)
podman run 27->24
docker run 9.4->9.769 total