Docker Engine (which is the core of what people think of as “Docker”) is FOSS. Docker Desktop (which most people rely on for local development) is free for individuals but I believe the license says companies over a certain size are required to pay.
And on top of that the paid plans also come with support, which large businesses frequently require, and private repositories on docker’s image repository.
This is the correct response.
At my job we’ve been asked to remove Docker desktop unless it is absolutely necessary for a client project.
I’ve just been using Docker through command line via WSL and that’s good enough for me.
I don’t see any use for Docker Desktop, you can see the running containers in a gui instead of just typing docker ps in a terminal, damn what a fucking awesome and needed thing, it’s gonna totally come in handy when I do deployments through the terminal and I didn’t learn the commands
Especially when your ide/editor has a plug-in that does the sane thing than docker desktop anyways
I think docker desktop’s bigger value prop is that it’s a well supported zero-effort setup of a VM to run the docker daemon on platforms that don’t support it natively (i.e. MacOS which a lot of programmers use). And it very cleanly handles mounting your local filesystem into containers running in the VM, which is important for dev envs and used to be a source of friction with alternatives (although it seems like the competition has caught up and this also now works out of the box with rancher desktop and others?). Having a GUI is somewhere behind those, though I know folks who have a weird preference for GUIs 🤷♀️.
I’m just a guy who uses Linux and spends most of his time in a terminal, so I’m not saying I value docker desktop, and I personally don’t have to deal with any of this so I’m probably behind on how good the alternatives are. Just saying where I see other people get use out of it.
We use it, and I honestly don’t see much value. I use 90% CLI, but occasionally it’s nice. I use macOS at work, so it’s nice to be able to see how much space the VM is using. Also, searching through logs is a little nicer through the GUI than the CLI.
I actively avoid the GUI at home because, even on Linux, it’ll spin up a VM to host your containers, whereas if you stick with the CLI, there’s no VM, which solves soooo many headaches.
Glad I run everything in a VM. If you want my money you can accept donations, and sell support contracts.
The moment you hide features or code behind a paywall or proprietary license, is the moment you no longer get my fucking money.
Granted random weirdos who donate to FLOSS projects probably weren’t paying dockers bill anywho.
