Docker alternative that is both secure and open source
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
As our primary servers are on CentOS and Fedora, a lot of our workload goes through podman which it comes with as default. We run all the containers in podman for not really the licensing reasons of docker, but more it being daemonless and not requiring root user.
Pros
- It’s daemonless, so somewhat more secure.
- It works exceptionally well and is compatible with Docker compose
- Podman Desktop actually makes individual usage also pretty easy.
- It can be used as Docker alternative with almost no additional steps
Cons
- Podman desktop is getting more stable with each version, but does need more UX friendliness as well.
- Official support for development tools and IDEs is missing for most tools
- It works well with Kubernetes, but I wouldn’t mind additional improvements
Return on Investment
- We definitely feel more secure.
- We do not suffer from memory or cpu overuses as it uses fedora coreOS which is lightweight
- We do not have to worry about license payments for our basic usages.
- It’s open source so quick fixes imminent with maximum transparency.
Alternatives Considered
Docker, SUSE Rancher and K3s Lightweight Kubernetes
Other Software Used
Kubernetes, GitLab, OpenJDK