I work somewhere that doesn’t have licensing with Docker Inc. And I work on a Mac. With Docker desktop out of the picture, I got some experience with the alternatives. I know this post is about the native implementation and not the VM one, but I just wanted to add my 2 cents:
Alternatives run by me: Podman, Rancher Desktop, Finch
Results:
Podman uses a lot more energy on idle than Finch and Rancher. On AVG 4 more Wats on an M1. (Normal idle is about 5W, so 9 almost doubles it cutting greatly in my battery life)
Podman and Finch are not compatible with some tools that expect a full docker sock. In my case the AWS CDK and SAM CLI have issues. (Which is fun as Finch is also made by AWS)
Finch does not offer a sock at all
Finch requires you to recreate the full VM when updated.
If you really want to have a drop-in replacement for Docker Desktop, use Rancher Desktop. Rancher lacks in UI and the extension feature. But I never had issues with the sock, as I can run it with containerd.
Finch has no UI
Podman’s VM has clock drift if you put your machine in sleep. Only solution I found is to reboot the podman VM.
Podman allows you to log in the VM with a command. I haven’t found a way on the others.