Podman Desktop celebrates 500k downloads(blog.podman.io)
blog.podman.io
Podman Desktop celebrates 500k downloads
https://blog.podman.io/2023/08/celebrating-500k-downloads-the-podman-desktop-journey-%f0%9f%8e%89/
113 comments
OrbStack dev here — sorry, can't reveal too much, but some of it is documented here: https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture
By "we" I assume you're referring to your company/employer, so I'm curious if there's any way the license could be more palatable short of being 100% free?
By "we" I assume you're referring to your company/employer, so I'm curious if there's any way the license could be more palatable short of being 100% free?
I think GP just means that OrbStack will no longer be free post beta, and that was their objection.
I have no problem paying for quality products, which OrbStack appears to be … but developers hear the words “license” or “free” and then get hopeful they can get a free lunch.
As such, a suggestion, just remove this line from your FAQ:
“Educational and non-profit open-source licenses subject to approval. Commercial open-source developers must purchase a license.”
Talking about open source in the same context of a paid subscription might be confusing people.
I have no problem paying for quality products, which OrbStack appears to be … but developers hear the words “license” or “free” and then get hopeful they can get a free lunch.
As such, a suggestion, just remove this line from your FAQ:
“Educational and non-profit open-source licenses subject to approval. Commercial open-source developers must purchase a license.”
Talking about open source in the same context of a paid subscription might be confusing people.
> Talking about open source in the same context of a paid subscription might be confusing people.
It's making some useful work though. It's only going to be free for non-profits who develop open-source software.
(I work at a non-profit which makes some closed-source software, and I'm an Orbstack user, so I expect to pay when the time comes)
It's making some useful work though. It's only going to be free for non-profits who develop open-source software.
(I work at a non-profit which makes some closed-source software, and I'm an Orbstack user, so I expect to pay when the time comes)
Yeah, I can understand that, but since it's for work I figured I'd ask whether it's a flat-out objection to anything paid, or if it's more to do with something specific about the license.
Thanks for pointing that line out — just reworded it to be more clear.
Thanks for pointing that line out — just reworded it to be more clear.
Nothing against this model, but your website states “OrbStack is completely free to use during beta, but it will become a paid product afterwards.”[0]
Also, the rest of the page implies OrbStack will be charging for any commercial use.
If this is the case, I don’t see how this is “free” in the sense that most people on this site interpret it. Have you thought about the FOSS model with support, maybe a Jetbrains style thing - adding enterprise/paid features on top of the FOSS stack?
[0] https://docs.orbstack.dev/faq
Also, the rest of the page implies OrbStack will be charging for any commercial use.
If this is the case, I don’t see how this is “free” in the sense that most people on this site interpret it. Have you thought about the FOSS model with support, maybe a Jetbrains style thing - adding enterprise/paid features on top of the FOSS stack?
[0] https://docs.orbstack.dev/faq
Free can mean free as in freedom or free as in beer, most people even on this site do not use "free" to mean exclusively the former, or "libre" as it's better distinguished. It is well understood exactly what the sentence you quoted means, especially as they disambiguated it through saying it will be a paid product afterwards, so obviously meaning free as in the free as in beer sense.
Oh, I full-heartedly understand and agree!
However, I think referring to something as "free" when it's explicitly "free right now and probably not later" is a bit misleading. I doubt GP was trying to pull any wool over any eyes. In the enterprise context, especially, the differentiation is pretty important. Also, the page I linked does imply that it will become not free in the lunch sense of the term, for commercial users (already not free in the libre sense of the term, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that).
However, I think referring to something as "free" when it's explicitly "free right now and probably not later" is a bit misleading. I doubt GP was trying to pull any wool over any eyes. In the enterprise context, especially, the differentiation is pretty important. Also, the page I linked does imply that it will become not free in the lunch sense of the term, for commercial users (already not free in the libre sense of the term, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that).
They explicitly say free during beta and paid afterwards so if anyone misunderstands that, that's on them. It's quite reasonable to have such phrasing and many other products also have similar business models.
I was referring to GP’s comment, not the website. Otherwise, pretty much agreed.
This diagram explains it very well, thanks!
So there's only 1 VM, running a modified Linux kernel (https://github.com/orbstack/linux-macvirt/commits/mac-pub) with a barebones userland. Then inside there's a bunch of souped-up chroots (probably LXC/LXD), running the various linux distribution VMs as well as one that just runs `dockerd`.
Here it specifies that all the VMs share 1 kernel: https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture#linux-machines
On top of this, it's fast because it uses Rosetta (which is very fast) and kdrag0n spent a lot of time optimizing various parts of the kernel and the resulting environment.
So there's only 1 VM, running a modified Linux kernel (https://github.com/orbstack/linux-macvirt/commits/mac-pub) with a barebones userland. Then inside there's a bunch of souped-up chroots (probably LXC/LXD), running the various linux distribution VMs as well as one that just runs `dockerd`.
Here it specifies that all the VMs share 1 kernel: https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture#linux-machines
On top of this, it's fast because it uses Rosetta (which is very fast) and kdrag0n spent a lot of time optimizing various parts of the kernel and the resulting environment.
> We are only missing faster local development.
Developer time is probably your most expensive resource. Saving $8/mo at the cost of dev time seems… suboptimal.
Developer time is probably your most expensive resource. Saving $8/mo at the cost of dev time seems… suboptimal.
Sometimes its more the issue that not owning your tools causes:
A) forced changes which can eat your “savings”
B) rent seeking (or: non-optional price increases like I’ve experienced with gitlab)
C) The company pivots and leaves your tool behind to languish
A) forced changes which can eat your “savings”
B) rent seeking (or: non-optional price increases like I’ve experienced with gitlab)
C) The company pivots and leaves your tool behind to languish
I'm fairly certain orbstack runs "machines" as lxc containers on the host vm, and then container runtime inside. Not sure if that would make container operations any faster but it would speed up "machine" lifecycle.
You can do this yourself via multipass, it's an interesting solution specifically on Apple Silicon because nested virtualization is not available and lxc does not require a hypervisor .
You can do this yourself via multipass, it's an interesting solution specifically on Apple Silicon because nested virtualization is not available and lxc does not require a hypervisor .
Congrats to the Podman team - it's impressive to build anything that gets 500k eyeballs let alone downloads.
With that said, we have yet to see if Podman can stand the test of time.
Millions of people flocked to Threads because of a dust-up on Twitter... and then immediately went back to Twitter. Can Podman manage to keep it's traction and continue growing... that will be something to see.
With that said, we have yet to see if Podman can stand the test of time.
Millions of people flocked to Threads because of a dust-up on Twitter... and then immediately went back to Twitter. Can Podman manage to keep it's traction and continue growing... that will be something to see.
...? podman has been around for years and has been slowly increasing users for years. it is the exact opposite of a flash in the pan.
Podman has been around for a while, you are right. However, it's recent surge in popularity is simply due to Docker Desktop's changed terms and pricing.
Still feels crappy what Docker did by being free since inception, becoming the standard and then springing license fees onto companies that couldn't migrate off of it in time.
Hopefully, podman can solve "basic dcoker desktop" needs for most companies.
Hopefully, podman can solve "basic dcoker desktop" needs for most companies.
Podman has been a very straightforward drop-in replacement for Docker at my company. Even if that didn't work out, things like Linux namespaces, chroot, bubblewrap, and so on are all beautifully well-documented, battle-tested tools.
Docker has no moat.
Docker has no moat.
Well the Linux side has plenty of good alternatives and has had them for years, but good luck with MacOS or Windows users. Many of them just can't be bothered to understand how these technologies work.
They just want an easy installer that lets them "run docker containers" and they don't want to even think about a Linux VM. Even many developers can't be bothered to deal with this stuff and just want some easy abstraction. This is where Docker Desktop has value and why some people will continue paying for it.
They just want an easy installer that lets them "run docker containers" and they don't want to even think about a Linux VM. Even many developers can't be bothered to deal with this stuff and just want some easy abstraction. This is where Docker Desktop has value and why some people will continue paying for it.
Yeah some of my colleagues missed the memo and we got the extortion attempt. The crazy thing is the part of the company that want you to pay the troll is not the same as the field sales.
That’s probably the most noxious business model ever. I’ve dealt with 5-6 companies doing that, and whenever renewal/retention is a different sales organization, i spin up a company project to plan the exit strategy.
The nickel and dime cost stuff is one thing, but the bigger problem is that these companies and products always decline.
That’s probably the most noxious business model ever. I’ve dealt with 5-6 companies doing that, and whenever renewal/retention is a different sales organization, i spin up a company project to plan the exit strategy.
The nickel and dime cost stuff is one thing, but the bigger problem is that these companies and products always decline.
Aren’t most sales teams separate from customer success? Can you expand on this insight?
Did you mean 'customer support'?
Probably not. Customer success are teams dedicated to keeping customers happy and paying and finding ways to ensure that they remain customers. Customer support is typically who you contact when you don't have any leverage and encounter a problem.
If you spend a million dollars a year on a contract, you will typically have someone you know by name and meet with regularly who will legitimately hear your feedback and work to resolve your problems.
If you spend a million dollars a year on a contract, you will typically have someone you know by name and meet with regularly who will legitimately hear your feedback and work to resolve your problems.
How is that not just another name for customer support? They're both kinds of support for the customer, even if one has a more palatable name. In my experience, one is simply an alias for the other, as the sibling commenter notes, I have not seen those two roles split out.
In my own experience, I've seen them as distinct groups from customer support both at the companies I've worked for and companies I've worked with. I view it more as an alias to account rep, but sometimes people account reps will delegate to.
Customer support will file a ticket for me when something isn't working. Maybe help if something on their script matches existing known issues. Customer success will proactively see that I'm not getting the expected value from my already committed spending and utilization and reach out to make sure everything is configured right so that I renew next year.
Customer support will file a ticket for me when something isn't working. Maybe help if something on their script matches existing known issues. Customer success will proactively see that I'm not getting the expected value from my already committed spending and utilization and reach out to make sure everything is configured right so that I renew next year.
I see what you mean. In my experience, I've seen those usually be called account representatives as you mentioned, while customer success was still just customer support under another name.
Customer success is an alias of customer support.
I've been using Rancher Desktop for the past 6 months and I haven't missed Docker Desktop a single time.
Anyone know how does it compares to podman desktop?
I believe Rancher desktop has more of an out-of-the-box focus on Kubernetes, it uses Rancher's k3s and whatnot. Podman desktop treats k8s as more of an optional thing, e.g. you use Kind to create a cluster.
Of course there are also organizational differences, Podman seems to be more of a community led open-source project whereas Rancher is ultimately trying to sell enterprise kubernetes management software.
In my experience, k3s looks great on the surface but I ran into quite a few issues operating it in a single-node use case.
If I was looking into this today, I'd definitely explore Podman/Kind instead.
Of course there are also organizational differences, Podman seems to be more of a community led open-source project whereas Rancher is ultimately trying to sell enterprise kubernetes management software.
In my experience, k3s looks great on the surface but I ran into quite a few issues operating it in a single-node use case.
If I was looking into this today, I'd definitely explore Podman/Kind instead.
It's one checkbox to disable k3s, I don't need it as the rare times I need to test something in k8s I do it in the dev environment.
The main rationale for using Rancher is that the CLI is the same as Docker. No modification to any script was needed.
Podman might be better, I can't say, but for what I use it for it doesn't really matter.
The main rationale for using Rancher is that the CLI is the same as Docker. No modification to any script was needed.
Podman might be better, I can't say, but for what I use it for it doesn't really matter.
That’s good info. Thanks!
I’ve had good luck with ubuntu multipass as a docker desktop replacement on macos:
https://ubuntu.com/blog/replacing-docker-desktop-on-windows-...
It runs on windows too.
https://ubuntu.com/blog/replacing-docker-desktop-on-windows-...
It runs on windows too.
Docker is still free.
it is only Docker Desktop which is no longer free.
most power users do not use or need Docker Desktop.
it is only Docker Desktop which is no longer free.
most power users do not use or need Docker Desktop.
The desktop application is the easiest way to get up and running on Mac or Windows where a VM is necessary. Of course you can still set up docker engine manually in a VM, but even then it doesn't offer the same level of integration, like host mounts, Rosetta on Mac. Desktop Linux is the only environment where the desktop app offers little benefit over just running the engine.
I always forget there's people who do software development on something other than Linux.
I mean I use Windows too (my laptop has poor Linux support, plus Proton wasn't a thing when I bought it so I went for something which is guaranteed to run games well). But I do all my development in a Linux VM in Virtualbox. If you have an SSD, performance is indistinguishable from native.
I mean I use Windows too (my laptop has poor Linux support, plus Proton wasn't a thing when I bought it so I went for something which is guaranteed to run games well). But I do all my development in a Linux VM in Virtualbox. If you have an SSD, performance is indistinguishable from native.
> If you have an SSD, performance is indistinguishable from native.
In my experience this is very much not the case. Running a graphical linux desktop in a VM on beefy hardware still introduces noticeable keypress latency for me, as an example.
In my experience this is very much not the case. Running a graphical linux desktop in a VM on beefy hardware still introduces noticeable keypress latency for me, as an example.
> businesses of fewer than than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in revenue
Seems like they can afford it.
Seems like they can afford it.
> Seems like they can afford it.
This is a low bar for ethical business practices.
If lure people to my ecosystem with low prices and then jack them up later when the switching costs are high, it's fine if they can afford it?
If the electric company jacked their rates by 10X for consumers who make over 100K a year would that be fine since "they can afford it"?
This is a low bar for ethical business practices.
If lure people to my ecosystem with low prices and then jack them up later when the switching costs are high, it's fine if they can afford it?
If the electric company jacked their rates by 10X for consumers who make over 100K a year would that be fine since "they can afford it"?
Electric company is a bad comparison because they’re a utility and you usually can’t switch.
If grocery store A started charging $30 for walking into the store, you better bet everyone’s gonna head to grocery store B.
If grocery store A started charging $30 for walking into the store, you better bet everyone’s gonna head to grocery store B.
Yes, because they would lose all their customers to their competitors, which is exactly what has happened to Docker.
To complete the context, both of those are required for free use of Docker Desktop; 250 employees and $1k revenue would still require you to license it.
EDIT: https://docs.docker.com/subscription/desktop-license/
EDIT: https://docs.docker.com/subscription/desktop-license/
That sounds like a bad business.
Or a government organisation. Or a charity.
Having worked in government, I don't see why they should be excluded from paying.
But I think a charity could fall under the 3rd one here.
"Examples of freely permitted usage include:
Personal projects with less than $10 million revenue per year Students and teachers (whether in an educational or professional setting) Research at not-for-profit institutions Personal contributions to non-commercial open source projects"
But I think a charity could fall under the 3rd one here.
"Examples of freely permitted usage include:
Personal projects with less than $10 million revenue per year Students and teachers (whether in an educational or professional setting) Research at not-for-profit institutions Personal contributions to non-commercial open source projects"
Second that. The crazy t&c required by gov have to be accounted for.
Not-for-profit institutions are exempt.
Which is fine.
250 employees earning the median US wage is 11 million per year to the employee before all sorts of overhead so more like 20 million in wages per year.
250 employees earning the median US wage is 11 million per year to the employee before all sorts of overhead so more like 20 million in wages per year.
While true, many businesses are not US or staffed by the median waged US employee
250 employees earning the average AR wage (542400 ARS/year) is around 360000 USD per year. You can pay 10 average AR workers for the wage of a single US minimum wage worker.
Respectfully, I had no idea what you were talking about without a few google searches.
AR == Argentinian Peso
542k ARS == $1600 USD
So I guess I’ll ask some questions:
1) Is the Argentinian software labor pool large and organized enough to be accessible to international firms?
2) Is this the average wage of a software developer in Argentina? Or some larger group?
3) Why is this relevant in this discussion?
AR == Argentinian Peso
542k ARS == $1600 USD
So I guess I’ll ask some questions:
1) Is the Argentinian software labor pool large and organized enough to be accessible to international firms?
2) Is this the average wage of a software developer in Argentina? Or some larger group?
3) Why is this relevant in this discussion?
I worked with some great Argentine contractors some years ago, I understand there is a nontrivial offshoring software labor pool.
There is a point that offshore contractors getting access to such software represents a ... larger proportion of compensation, especially among the several such SaaS per-user fees most tech companies will pay.
But there's also a counterpoint... docker wants somewhere between $5 and $30 US dollars per month per user, yes this is annoying because the value doesn't seem to be there for docker desktop which is all most people want anyway... on the other hand it's not such a moral issue... it's not much money at all.
There is a point that offshore contractors getting access to such software represents a ... larger proportion of compensation, especially among the several such SaaS per-user fees most tech companies will pay.
But there's also a counterpoint... docker wants somewhere between $5 and $30 US dollars per month per user, yes this is annoying because the value doesn't seem to be there for docker desktop which is all most people want anyway... on the other hand it's not such a moral issue... it's not much money at all.
> AR == Argentinian Peso
Nope, ISO 4217 says it's ARS.
AR is the ISO 3166 contry code for Argentina.
> 1) Is the Argentinian software labor pool large and organized enough to be accessible to international firms?
Yes?
> 2) Is this the average wage of a software developer in Argentina? Or some larger group?
Average wage of Argentina.
> 3) Why is this relevant in this discussion?
People like to think people only live in the US.
Nope, ISO 4217 says it's ARS.
AR is the ISO 3166 contry code for Argentina.
> 1) Is the Argentinian software labor pool large and organized enough to be accessible to international firms?
Yes?
> 2) Is this the average wage of a software developer in Argentina? Or some larger group?
Average wage of Argentina.
> 3) Why is this relevant in this discussion?
People like to think people only live in the US.
Something feels very wrong about this class of tool (Docker Desktop) being mandatory GUI. I want 0 of the features provided by the GUI that aren't already in the CLI.
Try Colima [0], it’s a CLI only Docker Desktop replacement built on Lima.
[0] https://github.com/abiosoft/colima
[0] https://github.com/abiosoft/colima
What feature is available in the desktop that's not available in the cli?
x86-64 container support on Apple silicon comes to mind.
I have limited experience with podman on M1, having only pivoted recently thanks to the docker license issues but my experience so far on an M1 Mac was I couldn't initialize or start the application from the gui.
Initialize timed out due to slow proxy speeds, so I had to use "podman machine start" at the command line to wait for the image download and install to complete. For whatever reason I couldn't start using the UI after a reboot because I got an EACCESS error and again command line worked which was then acknowledged as running via the UI.
This is in an environment where the end-user has no root and podman is running in rootless mode. Once I got it running, I was able to crank up x86 http and postgres containers from the command line mostly with no issues, although pod termination seems to work better from the UI. In fact starting containers at command line throws a warning that your container architecture doesn't match your host architecture but that's it and podman just carries on after that.
When you say x86-64, is there something special about 64-bit containers that makes them only work via the UI?
Initialize timed out due to slow proxy speeds, so I had to use "podman machine start" at the command line to wait for the image download and install to complete. For whatever reason I couldn't start using the UI after a reboot because I got an EACCESS error and again command line worked which was then acknowledged as running via the UI.
This is in an environment where the end-user has no root and podman is running in rootless mode. Once I got it running, I was able to crank up x86 http and postgres containers from the command line mostly with no issues, although pod termination seems to work better from the UI. In fact starting containers at command line throws a warning that your container architecture doesn't match your host architecture but that's it and podman just carries on after that.
When you say x86-64, is there something special about 64-bit containers that makes them only work via the UI?
I was talking about Docker not podman, as that's what I assumed the parent comment was discussing.
Docker CE does not offer an emulation layer for x86(-64) on ARM, to my knowledge.
Docker CE does not offer an emulation layer for x86(-64) on ARM, to my knowledge.
Ah, my bad. Thought you were talking podman.
You can do that without the GUI: https://github.com/dbhi/qus
Could this not be achieved by managing your own vm on Apple silicon, if you're that averse to the Podman Desktop GUI?
It is simple on the CLI with podman using the ‘platform’ argument. They were confusingly only referring to Docker it seems.
[deleted]
I switched to Podman on Windows, from Docker Desktop, and it was a bit rough 6mo ago but it’s fairly good now.
Podman Desktop on Windows? Why not podman on WSL2? I've been using Podman on a Fedora 37 WSL instance and it's fantastic.
Podman Desktop on Windows works on top of WSL2 with Fedora image nowadays, but one of the advantages of that, since v4.6.0, it's new --user-mode-networking option for init to bypass harsh VPNs such as Cisco AnyConnect VPN \m/
https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-machine-ini...
https://docs.podman.io/en/latest/markdown/podman-machine-ini...
Does it have a better response when clicking something than Docker Desktop?
what made it rough? reliability or just the integration?
My only experience with this software is getting the error
Error: OCI runtime error: runc: runc create failed: cannot use rootless systemd cgroups manager on cgroup v1
What version of Ubuntu? I thought they switched to cgroups v2 years ago.
> If it were in somewhere critical I'd worry.
Looks like you can enable the rootless systemd cgroups manager by adding
> If it were in somewhere critical I'd worry.
Looks like you can enable the rootless systemd cgroups manager by adding
systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=1
Thank you for that. I couldn't find that info anywhere.
I was surprised at how poorly documented/indexed it was when I searched around, too!
Anyone know how the performance is vs docker desktop on an Intel mac? I moved to using hosted services for local dev because even 1 container running would kill my MacBook
How much RAM does your Mac have and what was allocates to Docker Desktop?
8GB, 3 for docker (I would run 1 container at a time)
It could be faster. DD uses a proprietary VM solution to run Linux, while Podman uses Lima. Lima is an extremely active project, while Docker seem happy doing the bare minimum (from my experience at least).
we are adding vfkit, which is our implementation of the native hypervisor for macos. by default it would currentky use qemu, but lima is an option.
Who is "we", Docker or (co)Lima.
Had the same question. My 60 second (somewhat creepy) smoothing was not enough to produce an answer, unfortunately.
Sleuthing*
We = Podman (machine + desktop) Team
Cool! I tried lima a while ago and it was way quicker, but painful to set up. Maybe I should try podman
So Podman Desktop/OrbStack are Docker Desktop replacement?
Do you need Docker (CLI and Desktop) installed? Or, you should uninstall them first?
Do you need Docker (CLI and Desktop) installed? Or, you should uninstall them first?
uninstall them first. podman desktop is a drop-in replacement, iirc.
I will hereby celebrate one week with orbstack!
Congrats! I'm glad yall added plugins/extensions awhile back
It would be a lot more exciting IBM wasn’t behind it.
try Rancher Desktop, then.
I like podman, it definitely seems like the right tool for local development. Docker still has better tooling in some areas though of course due to maturity.
OrbStack functions better than Podman and Docker Desktop combined on macOS: https://orbstack.dev/
Lightweight, native app, drop in replacement. It is funny that you need to launch an entire web browser to then launch a single container.
Lightweight, native app, drop in replacement. It is funny that you need to launch an entire web browser to then launch a single container.
Not comparable to podman:
"Is OrbStack free?
OrbStack is completely free to use during beta, but it will become a paid product afterwards. We're still working out the details, but this is the plan so far (subject to change):
Personal use: free Business and commercial use: $8/user/mo "
Personal use: free Business and commercial use: $8/user/mo "
What trickery does OrbStack[0] use to be fast?
We went back to Podman Desktop because of the license[1], but the interactions on macOS are almost as slow as Docker Desktop.
As for Podman itself, happy users here, and our workflows have been working for a while now. We are only missing faster local development.
----
[0]: https://orbstack.dev/
[1]: https://docs.orbstack.dev/faq#free