Podman support

This is for first-class Podman support, similar to Podman Desktop. It's not planned, but I've opened this issue because it's been mentioned a few times. Please vote 👍 if you're interested.

For now, you can create a Linux machine and install Podman in it. Port forwards, bind mounts, etc. should still work just like normal.

If you're interested in this, please comment and share why. Thanks!

looking forward with this issue

Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available.

Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available.

Podman is much more secure and also lighter weight.

Also, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I have heard it said that Podman is the only one that works on Red Hat.

(Not that I'm a fan of Red Hat, but in some situations I have no choice but to work on Red Hat servers.)

Podman is much more secure and also lighter weight.

Lighter, yes, but I don't see how it could be more secure.

Also, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I have heard it said that Podman is the only one that works on Red Hat.

(Not that I'm a fan of Red Hat, but in some situations I have no choice but to work on Red Hat servers.)

That doesn't sound too likely, but even if it were true, it doesn't apply to OrbStack. Since Podman is meant to be compatible with Docker, you can develop locally with Docker and deploy with Podman.

From what I've seen, most people ask for Podman support because they're already using Podman Desktop as a free alternative to Docker Desktop and have gotten in the habit of running Podman instead, in which case you can just alias podman=docker for the most part.

This might be completely off, so it'd be very helpful if more people could chime in. As it stands, it seems like adding Podman would just increase complexity and app size for no good reason because it does mostly the same thing as Docker but with fewer features (e.g. no BuildKit). There must be something I'm missing if so many people have upvoted the issue, and I'd like to understand the use cases and appeal better.

From OrbStack's perspective: We need to keep Docker around because Podman won't cover all use cases. And if Docker already does more than Podman, then why add a second container manager that has fewer features and otherwise does mostly the same thing? It increases complexity, app size, and may cause confusion for users not familiar with the whole Docker/Podman/container scene.

Yes, Podman is lighter and may use fewer resources, but what's the point if most people won't be using it?

Lighter, yes, but I don't see how it could be more secure.

Podman doesn't need root permission to run (I heard that docker has an experimental feature for this?) and also support fuse overlayfs and userspace networking drivers.

Podman allows running containers as a user (i.e. not as root, which is generally more secure), has tighter integration with SystemD (both for updating/starting containers and running SystemD inside a container) and is considered a stepstone to K8s/K3s due to its native export kube yaml feature.

I'm using Podman primarily to replicate and test SaltStack workflows with SystemD inside multiple containers - a feature not possible with Docker.

looking forward to this feature.

I would love seeing this

Please, pretty please ...

+1.

Unprivileged containers are a big plus. Also ecosystem reasons, including trust & support for CNCF / OCI tooling beyond Docker.

podman's design that integrates with systemd and doesn't require a separate daemon are both design decisions that I find really compelling. I've loved using Orbstack, so I found this issue in seeing if there's some reasonable crossover, thinking that Podman desktop probably doesn't have the deeper Mac integration that Orbstack has.

Podman is rootless and open source container solutions, and support pod operations like K8S;
Looking forward with this issue!

podman is more safe and performance.

Both Podman (Desktop) and Orbstack are superior experiences to Docker Desktop. I had moved to Podman Desktop from Docker Desktop for a number of reasons (much of which above, but also because we use Podman in some CI pipelines), keeping it around is probably easier than migrating to Orbstack.

However, the biggest benefit for Orbstack supporting Podman natively, for me, would be to avoid having two, separate VMs on my Mac.

Yes, looking forward to this. My reason is that podman is rootless.

Features that make Podman superior to Docker (in addition to its security, rootless operation, performance, and daemonless architecture):

Kubernetes Integrations:
- Manifest generation
- Emulation of Kubernetes behavior (e.g., deploying manifests from YAML)
A more consistent and convenient CLI API (e.g., the ability to pass --all to the start command)
The ability to generate systemd unit files for containers

@kdrag0n

Subject: Request for Podman Support – Multi-registry Configuration Flexibility

Hi @kdrag0n and team,

I’d like to share my use case for first-class Podman support in OrbStack, particularly regarding multi-registry configuration.

Why Podman?

Flexible Registry Management:
Podman allows defining multiple mirror registries (including private/custom ones) in registries.conf, while Docker only supports mirroring docker.io. For example, my config mirrors docker.io, ghcr.io, and gcr.io to my university’s internal registry:
```
unqualified-search-registries = ["docker.io"]

[[registry]]
prefix = "docker.io"
location = "docker.nju.edu.cn"
insecure = true

[[registry]]
prefix = "ghcr.io"
location = "ghcr.nju.edu.cn"
insecure = true
```
This is critical for environments with restricted external access (e.g., academic/corporate networks).
Migration Pain Point:
When switching from a Podman-based platform (e.g., Linux) to OrbStack (Docker-only), I must rewrite all deployment commands to explicitly use mirrored registry URLs (e.g., docker.nju.edu.cn/nginx instead of nginx). Native Podman support would preserve compatibility.

Suggestion

Even partial Podman support (e.g., registries.conf compatibility) would significantly improve workflows for users relying on multi-registry setups.

Thanks for considering this feature! I’m happy to provide more details if needed.

Yes please! My reason is that podman is security and less resource intensive.

Looking forward to this 👍🏻

In 4 1/2 short months, this feature request will be 3 years old. 😳 Not holding me breath that this will get Podman support.

@kdrag0n

Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available.

You're building a close-source, licensable, subscription based containerization tool and do not know why Podman is useful? Put that revenue to good use by building the most requested feature by your users or at least read up on containerization with Podman @kdrag0n 🙄

podman in podman is richer than docker in docker. Podman can be configured to first use a read-only folder of image layers before attempting to pull. Meaning... less copying and less downloading and better shared memory usage when running multiple dev environments.

Would love to see this!

_^podman podman Podman PODMAN!

been 3 years and still nothing panned out, dead Issue.

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Podman support #88

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redsnapper2006 commented on Mar 30, 2023

kdrag0n commented on May 26, 2023

brandonzylstra commented on Jun 13, 2023

brandonzylstra commented on Jun 13, 2023

kdrag0n commented on Jun 15, 2023

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