Both the standard Windows and Mac OS versions of docker use VMs (Windows uses WSL2 and IIRC Mac OS uses Virtialization.framework) as the OSes don't provide the

Both the standard Windows and Mac OS versions of docker use VMs (Windows uses WSL2 and IIRC Mac OS uses Virtialization.framework) as the OSes don't provide the a linux kernel for the containerized userspace. If it didn't do this, it'd have to host Windows and Mac OS environments, which would defeat the portable nature of Docker.