9 ms·

To provide 1 contrary opinion to all the others saying they have a problem: Podman rocks for me! I find docker hard to use and full of pitfalls and podman isn

by t43562 1y ago

To provide 1 contrary opinion to all the others saying they have a problem: Podman rocks for me! I find docker hard to use and full of pitfalls and podman isn't any worse. On the plus side, any company I work for doesn't have to worry about licences. Win win!

goldman7911 1y ago
You only have to worry about licences if you use Docker DESKTOP. Why not use RANCHER Desktop? I have been using it by years. Tested it in Win11 and Linux Mint. I can have even a local kubernetes.
- seabrookmx 1y ago
  Why not use Docker Engine/CE on Linux so you don't have to run a VM?
- lmm 1y ago
  Low-quality UX (e.g. you have to switch tabs and switch back if you ever want to see the current state of your containers, because it loads it once when you open the tab and never updates, and doesn't even give you a button to refresh it), lack of documentation, behavioural changes that happen silently (e.g. it autoupdates which changes the VM hostname, so the thing that was working yesterday doesn't work today and you have no idea why) and general flakiness.
- mpawelski 1y ago
  I concur. My company is using Rancher Desktop on Windows machines. No problems. As long as you use don't care about GUI, and just use CLI dommands ("docker" , "docker compose" ).
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ac130kz 1y ago
It's works great until you need that one option from Docker Compose that is missing in Podman Compose (which is written in Python for whatever reason, yeah...).
- carwyn 1y ago
  You can use the real compose (Go) with Podman now. The Python clone is not your only option.
  - ac130kz 1y ago
    Well, is this Podman's "service mode" also fully compatible with Docker Compose file functionality though?
    - bigbong 1y ago
      Looks like the compose `watch` option is not yet supported[1]. Huge blocker for adoption in local development. [1]:https://github.com/containers/podman-compose/issues/792 https://github.com/containers/podman-compose/issues/792
  - jcotton42 1y ago
    What do you mean by "the real compose"?
    - ac130kz 1y ago
      I assume Docker Compose v2 from Docker.
xedrac 1y ago
I vastly prefer Podman over Docker. No user/group fuss, no security concerns over a root process. No having to send data to a daemon.
anakaine 1y ago
On a few machines now ive had Podmans windows uninstaller fail to remove all its components and cause errors on start up due to postman not being found. Even manually removing leftover services and start up items didn't fix the issue. Its a constant source of annoyance.
Izmaki 1y ago
None of your companies need to worry about licenses. Docker ENGINE is free and open source. Docker DESKTOP is a software suite that requires you to purchase a license to use in a company. But Docker Engine, the core component which works on Linux, Mac and Windows through WSL2, that is completely and 1000% free to use.
- t43562 1y ago
  Those companies use docker desktop on their dev's machines.
  - Almondsetat 1y ago
    That's their completely optional prerogative
  - connicpu 1y ago
    There's no need if all your devs use desktop Linux as their primary devices like we do where I work :)
    - t43562 1y ago
      On Mac we just switched to podman and didn't have anything to worry about.
      - allovertheworld 1y ago
        Cant imagine being forced to use a linux PC for work lmao
        connicpu 1y ago
        I happily embraced it, to each their own I guess. There are folks who mainly work on their mac/windows laptops and just ssh into their workstation, but IT gives us way more freedom (full sudo access) on Linux so I can customize a lot more which makes me a lot happier.
nickjj 1y ago
> On the plus side, any company I work for doesn't have to worry about licences. Win win! Was this a deal breaker for any company? I ask because the Docker Desktop paid license requirement is quite reasonable. If you have less than 250 employees and make less than $10 million in annual revenue it's free. If you have a dev team of 10 people and are extremely profitable to where you need licenses you'd end up paying $9 a year per developer for the license. So $90 / year for everyone, but if you have US developers your all-in payroll is probably going to be over $200,000 per developer or roughly $2 million dollars. In that context $90 is practically nothing. A single lunch for the dev team could cost almost double that. To me that is a bargain, you're getting an officially supported tool that "just works" on all operating systems.
- smokel 1y ago
  Reading through the comments here, it looks like there is an opportunity for a startup to streamline software licensing. Just a free tip.
  - eehoo 1y ago
    There are already software licensing providers such as 10Duke that do exactly that. Pretty much all of the licensing related problems mentioned here would either disappear or at the very least get dramatically simpler if more companies used 10Duke Enterprise as their licensing solution to issue and manage licenses. There is a better way, but sadly most businesses overlook licensing. (the company I work for uses them, our licensing used to be a mess similar to what's described here)
  - adolph 1y ago
    Yeah, at a big enterprise the larger challenge ahead of even payment is the legal arrangements. They typically sign some "master license" agreement with an aggregator like CDW. Those places don't seem well set up for software redistribution though. Setting up a Steam or AppStore clone for various utility-ware would go a long way to enabling people to access the software an enterprise doesn't mind paying for if the legal and financial stuff wasn't applying friction.
- 1y ago

by t43562 1y ago

goldman7911 1y ago

You only have to worry about licences if you use Docker DESKTOP. Why not use RANCHER Desktop? I have been using it by years. Tested it in Win11 and Linux Mint. I can have even a local kubernetes.

seabrookmx 1y ago
Why not use Docker Engine/CE on Linux so you don't have to run a VM?
lmm 1y ago
Low-quality UX (e.g. you have to switch tabs and switch back if you ever want to see the current state of your containers, because it loads it once when you open the tab and never updates, and doesn't even give you a button to refresh it), lack of documentation, behavioural changes that happen silently (e.g. it autoupdates which changes the VM hostname, so the thing that was working yesterday doesn't work today and you have no idea why) and general flakiness.
mpawelski 1y ago
I concur. My company is using Rancher Desktop on Windows machines. No problems. As long as you use don't care about GUI, and just use CLI dommands ("docker" , "docker compose" ).

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ac130kz 1y ago

It's works great until you need that one option from Docker Compose that is missing in Podman Compose (which is written in Python for whatever reason, yeah...).

carwyn 1y ago
You can use the real compose (Go) with Podman now. The Python clone is not your only option.
- ac130kz 1y ago
  Well, is this Podman's "service mode" also fully compatible with Docker Compose file functionality though?
  - bigbong 1y ago
    Looks like the compose `watch` option is not yet supported[1]. Huge blocker for adoption in local development. [1]:https://github.com/containers/podman-compose/issues/792 https://github.com/containers/podman-compose/issues/792
- jcotton42 1y ago
  What do you mean by "the real compose"?
  - ac130kz 1y ago
    I assume Docker Compose v2 from Docker.

xedrac 1y ago

I vastly prefer Podman over Docker. No user/group fuss, no security concerns over a root process. No having to send data to a daemon.

anakaine 1y ago

On a few machines now ive had Podmans windows uninstaller fail to remove all its components and cause errors on start up due to postman not being found. Even manually removing leftover services and start up items didn't fix the issue. Its a constant source of annoyance.

Izmaki 1y ago

None of your companies need to worry about licenses. Docker ENGINE is free and open source. Docker DESKTOP is a software suite that requires you to purchase a license to use in a company. But Docker Engine, the core component which works on Linux, Mac and Windows through WSL2, that is completely and 1000% free to use.

t43562 1y ago
Those companies use docker desktop on their dev's machines.
- Almondsetat 1y ago
  That's their completely optional prerogative
- connicpu 1y ago
  There's no need if all your devs use desktop Linux as their primary devices like we do where I work :)
  - t43562 1y ago
    On Mac we just switched to podman and didn't have anything to worry about.
    - allovertheworld 1y ago
      Cant imagine being forced to use a linux PC for work lmao
      - connicpu 1y ago
        I happily embraced it, to each their own I guess. There are folks who mainly work on their mac/windows laptops and just ssh into their workstation, but IT gives us way more freedom (full sudo access) on Linux so I can customize a lot more which makes me a lot happier.

nickjj 1y ago

> On the plus side, any company I work for doesn't have to worry about licences. Win win! Was this a deal breaker for any company? I ask because the Docker Desktop paid license requirement is quite reasonable. If you have less than 250 employees and make less than $10 million in annual revenue it's free. If you have a dev team of 10 people and are extremely profitable to where you need licenses you'd end up paying $9 a year per developer for the license. So $90 / year for everyone, but if you have US developers your all-in payroll is probably going to be over $200,000 per developer or roughly $2 million dollars. In that context $90 is practically nothing. A single lunch for the dev team could cost almost double that. To me that is a bargain, you're getting an officially supported tool that "just works" on all operating systems.

smokel 1y ago
Reading through the comments here, it looks like there is an opportunity for a startup to streamline software licensing. Just a free tip.
- eehoo 1y ago
  There are already software licensing providers such as 10Duke that do exactly that. Pretty much all of the licensing related problems mentioned here would either disappear or at the very least get dramatically simpler if more companies used 10Duke Enterprise as their licensing solution to issue and manage licenses. There is a better way, but sadly most businesses overlook licensing. (the company I work for uses them, our licensing used to be a mess similar to what's described here)
- adolph 1y ago
  Yeah, at a big enterprise the larger challenge ahead of even payment is the legal arrangements. They typically sign some "master license" agreement with an aggregator like CDW. Those places don't seem well set up for software redistribution though. Setting up a Steam or AppStore clone for various utility-ware would go a long way to enabling people to access the software an enterprise doesn't mind paying for if the legal and financial stuff wasn't applying friction.
1y ago