Podman Alternatives

Podman is described as 'Daemon-less container runtime for managing containers, pods, and container images. It is intended as a counterpart to CRI-O, to provide low-level debugging not available through the CRI interface used by Kubernetes' and is a popular app in the system & hardware category. There are more than 10 alternatives to Podman for a variety of platforms, including Linux, Mac, Windows, Self-Hosted and Flathub apps. The best Podman alternative is Docker, which is both free and Open Source. Other great apps like Podman are OrbStack, containerd, CRI-O and Colima.

Copy a direct link to this comment to your clipboard
Podman alternatives page was last updated

Alternatives list

  1. Docker icon
     329 likes

    Docker is an open-source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container that will run virtually anywhere.

    29 Docker alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium (Subscription)
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Online
    • Self-Hosted
    • TrueNAS
     
    • Docker is the most popular Web-based, Windows, Mac & Linux alternative to Podman.

    • Docker is the most popular Open Source & free alternative to Podman.

    • Docker is Freemium and Open SourcePodman is Free and Open Source
    • Docker is LightweightPodman is not according to our users
  2. OrbStack icon
     16 likes

    OrbStack is an alternative to Docker Desktop for macOS, designed to offer improved performance for Docker and virtual machines on Linux running on Mac computers. It addresses performance issues that have been experienced in the past, particularly on models with Apple Silicon.

    10 OrbStack alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free Personal
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  3. containerd icon
     6 likes

    An industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Self-Hosted
     
  4. CRI-O icon
     2 likes

    CRI-O is an implementation of the Kubernetes CRI (Container Runtime Interface) to enable using OCI (Open Container Initiative) compatible runtimes. It is a lightweight alternative to using Docker as the runtime for kubernetes.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  5. Colima icon
     3 likes

    Container runtimes on macOS (and Linux) with minimal setup.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Linux
     
  6. rkt icon
     7 likes

    rkt is the next-generation container manager for Linux clusters. Designed for security, simplicity, and composability within modern cluster architectures, rkt discovers, verifies, fetches, and executes application containers with pluggable isolation.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  7. Pods icon
     2 likes

    Pods is a frontend for podman. It uses libadwaita for its user interface and strives to meet the design principles of GNOME.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Flathub
     
  8. Crane icon
     8 likes

    Crane is a container image tool that includes building local Docker images; connecting to DockerHub; listing local and remote container images; pushing local images to the DockerHub registry, and importing remote container images into an MLOps platform cluster.

    13 Crane alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
     
  9. Skopeo icon
     1 like

    Skopeo is a command line utility that performs various operations on container images and image repositories.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Raspberry Pi
    • Mac
    • Homebrew
     
  10. Dockercraft icon
     1 like

    Docker + Minecraft = Dockercraft. Contribute to docker/dockercraft development by creating an account on GitHub.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Minecraft
    • Docker
     
  11. Lilipod icon
     2 likes

    Lilipod is a simple container manager, able to download, unpack and use OCI images from various container registries.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
11 of 11 Podman alternatives