If you don’t have strong opinions one way or the other, then docker is the easy answer. Way, way more widespread, which generally tends to mean better docs, more guides and examples, more tooling and open-source support…

I use podman with the podman-docker compatibility layer and native docker-compose. Podman + podman-docker is a drop-in replacement for actual docker. You can run all the regular docker commands and it will work. If you run it as rootful, it behaves in exactly the same way. Docker-compose will work right on top of it.

I prefer this over native Docker because I get the best of both worlds. All the tutorials and guides for Docker work just fine, but at the same time I can explore Podman’s rootless containers. Plus I enjoy it’s integration with Cockpit.

I would say Docker. There is no substantial benefit in running podman, while docker is a widely adopted tool (which means more tooling in the ecosystem, easier to find answers to questions etc.). The difference is not huge tbh, and some time ago the biggest advantage for podman was being able to run rootless, while docker was stuck with a root daemon. This is not the case anymore (docker can run rootless), so I would say unless you have some specific argument to use podman, stick with docker.

I personally prefer podman, due to its rootless mode being “more default” than in docker (rootless docker works, but it’s basically an afterthought).

That being said: there’s just so many tutorials, tools and other resources that assume docker by default that starting with docker is definitely the less cumbersome approach. It’s not that podman is signficantly harder or has many big differences, but all the tutorials are basically written with docker as the first target in mind.

In my homelab the progression was docker -> rootless docker -> podman and the last step isn’t fully done yet, so I’m currently running a mix of rootless docker and podman.

Podman is slightly better, but most tutorials are for docker.

So, podman if you’re comfortable looking through docs, man-pages, scarce Internet resources, and trial and error for finding things out. Especially if you care about having better security with rootless mode.

Podman also has a different way for managing many containers at once, and the interaction between them.

Podman is significantly better if you want to leverage the Systemd integration it has out of the box.

But if you just want to run existing docker-compose scripts then Docker is easier.

If docker works for you, then don’t change what’s not broken. If there are things you don’t like about docker (root access etc for example) then venture out and try others. At the end of the day, they’re just tools to get to the more interesting stuff — actually running applications and playing with them.

It depends on what you want. Do you want containers that don’t blow away your firewall? Podman is nice, but docker can be configured a little to avoid this. Want things that autostart and don’t have issues with entry points that attempt to play with permissions/users? Docker or podman as root is necessary. Want reasonable compose support? Podman now needs a daemon/socket. Want to make build containers and not deal with permission/user remapping at all? Podman is really nice.

Do not attempt to use podman-compose. That app is dead.

Unfortunately if you want to make tools that will be used by other people then you must add docker support. It just owns too much of the market.

I like podman because rootless and daemonless are built-in and default. Yes, it can be done on docker, but you have to do a bunch of shit to get it set up.

You could create the alias alias docker="podman" and 99% of the time, you won’t even be able to tell the difference since podman is a docker drop in replacement. All the docker documentation applies to podman as well. But since docker runs as root by default, some edge cases might not work out of the box (like binding to a port on the host less than 1000).

Podman comes with some neat tools like being able to create systemd service files to start and stop containers as services.

To use docker-compose, you’ll need some additional packages. That’s probably the biggest drawback to podman imo. Podman wants to use pods instead of docker-compose, but I think they gotta take their heads out of their asses and just support the more popular format on that one. Not to mention docker-compose is just plain better imo. Easier to define, easier to understand, easier to modify. The list goes on and on.

I like podman more because people told me it was better and it just worked for me :P

Podman rootless, using quadlets for systemd services. :D

Honestly I use docker because by now I know docker and basically everything has support for it…

If you’re just starting out and have never used containers before start with regular (rootful) docker. It’s a much simpler mechanism to understand for a beginner and has more widespread support and documentation.

Once you understand containers and have used them for a few months you can start going down the rabbit hole, there’s no shortage of technologies to explore.

Or, if you’re only interested in self-hosting as a hobby and docker does what you need, you can also stop there. Not everybody needs a deep dive into technology.

I like the idea behind Podman, but it’s not a suitable drop in replacement for Docker yet. Especially since it requires manual setup to auto-start stacks at boot, and can’t import docker compose files easily.

Docker is easier to use, has many more examples and tutorials out there, and every project generally provides a docker compose file ready to go for quick setup.

Whichever one you want.