I’d wager it’s mainly just that deployment is mildly more annoying and requires more disparate steps.

Especially if you want to go rootless (and you should).

For someone that isn’t “Linux first” (like a baby developer learning to containerize their apps), the idea of dealing with systemd unit files or kublet configs, and having to created dedicated local service accounts (and remembering to enable linger) is somewhat intimidating when compared to just installing docker, whipping up a docker compose file and pressing “start”.

I understand why they’ve taken this approach but it’s pretty clunky and a bit unfriendly.

Last time I checked podman compose was only a superficial docker compose equivalent. Also stuff like inotify seems to randomly break a lot on the podman side.

I'd love to be able to recommend people use podman but not having a good docker compose compatibility and missing inotify on volumes makes the DX just too problematic.

I think a stronger brand name. Also on macOS I found Docker Desktop to be more straightforward. Also lately it has been very error prone. Randomly failing at mounting files, or cleaning up networking rules, or suddenly becoming bog slow so I have to restart the VM.

Podman on macOS feels miles less refined. Orbstack is a way better choice.

I only use podman on Linux and there it is blazing fast. Even so, most features seem to be geared to be able to replace kubernetes in combination with systemd. And then something simple as docker compose support is flaky and it’s TUI/ux lags behind the original.

Just today, I tried to run docker compose on a remote host via podman-docker on Fedora (Asahi). I ran into all sorts of buildx issues, and the easiest fix for me was to remove podman and install docker instead.

I tried working through it with Claude, but after a few failed attempts I gave up. I'd like to use podman, but the docker compose + buildx compatibility gaps made it more trouble than it was worth for now. I'm definitely going to try it again.

One advantage of Docker is reliable host-to-container file change notifications, allowing tools like Vite inside the container to detect changes. Podman and many alternatives don’t handle this well for our web development on macOS.

Not even Tart or Apple Container support it, as far as I know. Maybe someone has found a way.

We need to popularize a "podman btw" meme based on the arch meme.

So any time people talk about docker someone can go:

I use podman btw

I gave up on Podman for some minor reasons: one was that they decided to deviate from Docker and handle SELinux differently, which required effort to change the SELinux security labels on a stock Centos system. That made it a no go.

The other issue is minor differences from Docker, but small enough that a packaged up Docker compose doesn’t work out of the box. It’s not a good use of my time to debug that when I could just switch to Docker, have it work, and get on with my day.

Last time I evaluated podman, Ubuntu was second class citizen. Rootless was non trivial and required additional setup. Documentation also suck.

Docker is something we all already hate, milion edge cases and forever bugs but at least well documented and understood. Podman claim to be drop-in replacement does it mean it carry docker shitness? Examples: ufw punch through, env file handling, volumes, etc

Because they don't publish up to date packages for major distros.

I ran into an issue I couldn't figure out how to solve with podman. Some of the testcontainers my test suites would run wouldn't start in time causing tests to fail locally. Switching back to docker desktop solved the problem.

In many places it doesn't matter, because cheap companies don't want to even hear about Docker, so one gets to choose between podman, rancher, and if on Windows wslc is going to be a thing.

Docker (the company) lost the plot in Linux containers, OCI got standardized, alternative runtimes came to be, and very few companies actually care to pay for Docker Desktop or the other services they sell.

it has a stronger brand, probably because it was created first. I still hear the term "docker container" (sometimes).

Most people simply do not care. They just want a Dockerfile to become an image, and they want to run that image. I use both... rootless podman is nice. Although the promise of ez systemd integration is a bit... oversold. I use it with systemd however with my own hand-crafted unit files. Pretty good combo.

For the company I work at, it’s primarily inertia. We started using containers with Docker. And then it just continued. We are two out of 20+ developers who would like to use Podman, but the rest is just ”eh, why bother?”. And I don’t fully fault them for holding that position, Docker generally works. Why switch to something which may or may not provide some benefit (most which will be indirect such as better security and setup)? I still continue to mention Podman regularly though …

Brand.

"OCI container" doesn't have same ring, unfortunately.

And most things are just clones of Docker, e.g. Containerfile. In a clone situation, the original brand will always have the staying power.

I mean for local dev I like that I can just press one button and have Kubernetes available. Podman Desktop had something approaching that simplicity but I have found Docker Desktop more stable in my limited experience with it.

I used rancher + podman on Windows. Mainly Rancher. The last 8 months I use exclusively Podman + Podman Desktop. Rancher has a slightly better desktop app and can manage podman.