k3s as a lightweight alternative to Kubernetes (k8s) comes built-in from the maintainers, Rancher.Alternatively, nerdctl provides a compatible CLI command, using containerd.I can select to use Moby/dockerd as an engine and get the docker CLI command.With Rancher Desktop you have the ability to choose your version of Kubernetes and reset Kubernetes or Kubernetes and the whole container runtime with the click of a button. Kubernetes is provided by k3s, a lightweight certified distribution. Kubernetes Kubernetes is built in to Rancher Desktop. nerdctl is a 'Docker-compatible CLI for containerd' provided by the containerd project. This is provided by either the Docker CLI (when you choose Moby/dockerd as you engine) or nerdctl (when you choose containerd as your engine). Quoting Rancher Desktop's docs: Container Management Rancher Desktop provides the ability to build, push, and pull container images along with the ability to run containers. Rancher Desktop supports macOS (Apple Silicon, Intel CPUs), Windows, Linux. This led me to focus on the next alternative. The problem is listed in the incompatibility section in the nerdctl documentation. Needs a workaround, but I did not want to modify the docker-compose.yml file.

Unfortunately, it does not like the entry point with multiple strings. Docker compose with nerdctlįollowing the documentation, this can be done with nerdctl compose inside lima. The process reminds me of how Vagrant boots a VM. Lima runs qemu to spawn the virtual machine. The installation requires to install Lima as VM where containerd is spawning the containers. I've then evaluated the next alternative. More advanced configuration is not yet supported and made me stop evaluating podman as alternative for the moment. $ cd docker-hub-limit-exporter/example/docker-compose $ vim $HOME/.oh-my-zsh/custom/aliases.zshĪ quick test with the Docker Hub Limit Exporter shows it working. Install Python using Homebrew, if you have not, and use pip3 to install podman-compose. Docker Compose with Podmanĭocker compose is available as podman-compose using PyPi. You can follow the discussion and change request. Running x86 container images on arm64 architecture is not yet supported, as it needs changes to the underlying qemu virtualization with podman machine. podman is an alternative for Docker on the CLI, a desktop variant is discussed in this proposal: Let's see if there are alternatives to Docker Desktop on macOS to help my requirements. That's the thing.Įverything else is either in CI/CD workflows or cloud-native deployments. What do I really need?Ī container CLI (& daemon, if root access is required) on macOS, with native port-forwarding and volume bind mounting. I think that's an interesting alternative to keep in mind too. The latter allows you to run docker-compose too and share with your team. My workloads shifted into the cloud: o11y.love is built using GitLab's Web IDE and Gitpod. Docker Desktop comes with Dev Environments allowing you to share the container in a team namespace on Docker Hub I haven't tried it though. My Macbook already runs hot with an external display attached, local resources are limited in my case. Looking at AWS EKS (tip: eksctl), Google Cloud GKE, and Civo Cloud, there are many affordable offerings in the market, with the benefit of allowing global collaboration. I also wanted to shift to managed k8s or k3s cloud offerings instead. When working with Kubernetes, I am thinking of network reachable clusters and deployments, not necessarily on my Macbook. I've never used it though, maybe I missed the use case. Local Kubernetes?ĭocker Desktop ships with Kubernetes. The Apple Silicon M1 will introduce arm64 as architecture, where an additional requirement is to run arm64 and cross-build x86 container images, for example following this post. I'm still using Intel x86, MacBook refreshment happens in 2023. Docker buildx works great for multi-arch builds, my suggestion is to move the builds into CI/CD pipelines. The transparent port-forwarding from the underlying VM hypervisor is nice and always has been my favorite compared to custom docker-machine VMs with Parallels many years ago. I've been using Docker on the CLI to run development environments and demos with docker-compose stacks. If you are only interested in the alternatives, navigate into the following chapters: I won't go into detail on the changes, except for describing my use case and what I am looking for when evaluating alternatives. The Docker Desktop subscription changes required a new agreement until January 31, 2022. In this blog post, we look into podman, nerdctl, and Rancher Desktop as Docker Desktop alternatives on macOS. Docker changed its subscription model including Docker Desktop, thus generating more demand for alternatives.

Brew install docker