Podman is a lot like Docker: a tool for running OCI containers. While it maintains backwards compatibility with Dockerfile and docker-compose syntax, it offers a lot of other benefits:

  • daemonless: it can run containers without a daemon process running in the background.
  • Rootless: can run containers without root privileges
  • pods: can group containers into secluded pods, which share resources and network namespace

Podman has other features I haven't explored yet, like compatibility with Kubernetes yaml file, and being able to run containers as systemd units.

Have you used podman before? What are your thoughts on it?

  • sbstp@programming.dev
    ·
    1 year ago

    I tried replacing some components of my NAS server that were on docker/docker-compose with podman but unfortunately it was not a 100% drop-in replacement. I had networking issues in podman that I did not have in docker.

    The network stack is implemented quite differently in podman than in docker, once you start using more advanced features the backward compatibility disappears.

    Since it came second, I think it has a lot of technical advantages, avoiding docker's mistakes and what not. In the long term I'll probably switch to it, unless Redhat keeps shooting itself in the foot...