Open source Docker Desktop alternatives

Every project in the catalog is MIT, Apache or BSD licensed. 0 projects explicitly describe themselves as a Docker Desktop alternative; 70 more are in the category where Docker Desktop is a typical product.

Open source projects in the same category: Containers & Kubernetes

Category-level information: these projects are the same kind of software as Docker Desktop; they have not claimed to be a one-to-one replacement.

KU

kubernetes · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS128.6K
FORKS46.4K
COMMITS141.1K
CONTRIBUTORS350
VERSIONv1.37.0
UPDATEDtoday
GoKubernetesKapsayıcıDağıtımApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You distribute containerized applications on a multi-server.
  • You ensure the maintenance and scaling of applications.
  • With service discovery and load balancing, you provide network access to applications.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (3,208)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Google Kubernetes Engine's third consecutive day of service disruption

    “Discounts included, my previous statements about cost still stand. That said, I don't think the cost differences should incentivize anyone to move unless they're operating at a scale that would make a substantial difference. Disk IO in AWS can be prohibitively expensive, for…”

  • ↓ NegativeHacker News

    Container technologies at Coinbase: Why Kubernetes is not part of our stack

    “I'm a fan of cloud native kubernetes. But: I've also been put in the terrible position of supporting a platform sold to run on kubernetes in an air gapped, on prem, bare metal environment. But: I've also been put into the terrible position of fighting vendors armed with agile,…”

Verified against README · Oct 25, 2026 · source

ET

etcd

100

etcd-io · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS52.4K
FORKS10.6K
COMMITS25.2K
CONTRIBUTORS373
VERSIONv3.7.1
UPDATED2 days ago
GoKey-Value StoreRaftgRPCApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can store and query key-value pairs using gRPC-based API.
  • You can create a distributed cluster through the Raft consensus algorithm.
  • With client certificate authentication, you can configure secure TLS connections.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

    “I don't really use k8s nor etcd, but one sentence in the article really stood out to me: > I would go so far as to say that Kubernetes is the worst thing to happen to system administration since systemd. I know it's popular to shit on systemd, but as a casual user, I honestly…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Etcd, or, why modern software makes me sad

    “To your point: it's situations like this that could (likely) be mitigated if they would have just upheld backwards compatibility: keep HTTP, add gRPC as alternative, 1st class ways of interacting with the tool. I haven't used etcd directly beyond K8, so I don't know if the new…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

AW

LeCoupa · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS46.6K
FORKS6.7K
COMMITS779
CONTRIBUTORS133
VERSION—
UPDATED13 days ago
ProgramlamaCheat SheetGeliştirme AraçlarıJavaScriptMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can quickly review basic information about Programlama languages and development tools from a single file.
  • You can test your technical knowledge of the framework or tools you use in a practical way.
  • You can easily access summaries prepared for the command line tools and infrastructure technologies you need.
Heads up
  • • No published release
User reviews
  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    Curl use for scripting

    “it could be useful to create a Curl cheat-sheet for scripting - major ways to use Curl.”

  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    Link to K8s cheat sheet errors with 404

    “Access to k8s link via webpage errors with http 404 error. Please fix link,”

Verified against README · Oct 25, 2026 · source

FU

fastapi · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS46.1K
FORKS9.2K
COMMITS1.5K
CONTRIBUTORS82
VERSION0.12.0
UPDATED5 days ago
FastAPIReactTypeScriptPostgreSQLMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You edit secure user management processes with the JWT-based authentication system.
  • Using Docker Compose, you configure the local development environment and server distribution.
  • You quickly develop interfaces with the auto-generated front-end client and React components.
User reviews
  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    sqlalchemy queue pool limit lockup/timeout

    “While doing some testing to see how this fastapi with sqlalchemy would hold up, my server seemed to lock up when running 100 concurrent requests. If i ran the requests sequentially it was totally fine. `sqlalchemy.exc.TimeoutError: QueuePool limit of size 5 overflow 10 reached,`…”

  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    Complete deployment instructions for DockerSwarm/Traefik/HTTPS on AWS EC2

    “We had some issues getting this project deployed into production with HTTPS, and judging from the number of related issues, it seems we are not the only ones. Here are step-by-step instructions we used to deploy on a fresh Ubuntu 20.04 AWS EC2 instance: ``` sudo su - #…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

CO

docker · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS38.5K
FORKS5.9K
COMMITS6.0K
CONTRIBUTORS266
VERSIONv5.5.1
UPDATEDyesterday
GoDockerContainerCLIApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can replicate your application environment anywhere by defining it with a Dockerfile.
  • By defining the services that make up your application in the compose.yaml file, you can run them together in an isolated environment.
  • You can start the entire application by running a single command.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Best practices around creating production ready web apps with Docker Compose

    “We deploy lots of small apps for internal usage, and we deploy those with docker compose. If your app fits on a single VM, and you don't have k8s, this is incredibly straightforward. It's even "easier" to just use kubernetes to deploy something - but that's if you already have…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Best practices around creating production ready web apps with Docker Compose

    “I personally use minikube[0] to have local deployments and production deployments to be very similar. Minikube is your personal kubernetes, and it's very to use, and is very close to the production kubernetes, but on a single node. I don't see enough praise for minikube on HN,…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

IS

istio · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS38.5K
FORKS8.4K
COMMITS26.6K
CONTRIBUTORS365
VERSION1.31.0
UPDATEDtoday
GoService MeshEnvoyKubernetesApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • Using Envoy side interface proxies, you manage the traffic flow in and out of the cluster.
  • You perform interservice authentication and principle checks.
  • You collect telemetry data by monitoring network traffic.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (507)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Google and IBM announce Istio – easily secure and manage microservices

    “I'm not sure if you're trolling or genuinely don't understand, so I think I can help you a little bit. Microservices are services that are generally containerized and are easily distributable through some form of a network to be easily replaceable parts. These services are…”

  • ↑ PositiveHacker News

    Google and IBM announce Istio – easily secure and manage microservices

    “Spectators love a fight. Ultimately it's more about using the right tool for your situation. Istio and Linkerd are both very young and the adoption will be with those that really need their unique features. Most companies, including startups, in my experience are using…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

K9

K9s

100

derailed · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS34.9K
FORKS2.3K
COMMITS—
CONTRIBUTORS384
VERSIONv0.51.0
UPDATEDtoday
kubernetescliterminaldevopsApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You use the terminal interface to navigate the Kubernetes cluster and observe its applications
  • By constantly monitoring changes in Kubernetes resources, you process over resources with related commands
  • You display pod logs, manage port routings, and examine source relationships and cluster status with pulse views with XRay.
User reviews
  • ↓ NegativeHacker News

    K9s – Manage Your Kubernetes Clusters in Style

    “One of my favorite features is pure speed, while still having a lot of functionality. If a production bug happens and I need to quickly debug, not much is faster than: - "k9s" (start the CLI) - "/myservice" (search for the pod) - "l" (open the logs) - "/Exception" (search the…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    K9s: A lazier way to manage Kubernetes Clusters

    “Huge fan of K9s. I take umbrage to "lazier" though. Especially since k9s' themselves considers themselves "a kubernetes CLI To manage your clusters in style". Sort of derogatory editorializing.”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

K3

k3s

100

k3s-io · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS34.3K
FORKS2.8K
COMMITS—
CONTRIBUTORS316
VERSIONv1.36.3-rc2+k3s1
UPDATEDtoday
GoKubernetesLightweightApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can run Kubernetes cluster in Edge and IoT environments.
  • You can set up a testing environment in resource-restricted environments for development and CI processes.
  • Using local manifests, you can automatically distribute Kubernetes resources in real time.
User reviews
  • ↑ PositiveHacker News

    K3s – Lightweight Kubernetes

    “I really want to do this as well - we've just started looking at minikube for our group, and I'd love to use k3s instead, but does anyone know if it works on OSX? I was able to get a cluster running on my laptop in under a minute, which is pretty amazing.”

  • ↑ PositiveHacker News

    K3s – Lightweight Kubernetes

    “This looks great, playing around with it right now. They seem to have removed PersistentVolumes, too. I'd like to run a MySQL database on K3S, how would I go about making sure that my database's data survives when its pod dies?”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

NA

alibaba · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS33.5K
FORKS13.3K
COMMITS6.3K
CONTRIBUTORS385
VERSION3.2.4
UPDATED2 days ago
JavaService DiscoveryMicroservicesConfiguration MgmtApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can save your services through DNS or HTTP interfaces and make them discover each other.
  • You can dynamically update the configuration settings of all services from a central point.
  • You can implement load balancing policies with methods such as weighted routing and traffic control.

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

MI

kubernetes · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS32.2K
FORKS5.4K
COMMITS28.3K
CONTRIBUTORS381
VERSIONv1.39.0
UPDATEDyesterday
GoKubernetesYerel KümeContainerApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • On your computer, you run a local Kubernetes cluster with support for LoadBalancer, NodePorts and persistent volumes.
  • You configure the apiserver and quartet options over the command line flags.
  • You test machine learning workloads with NVIDIA and AMD GPU support.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (605)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Minikube now supports rootless podman driver for running Kubernetes

    “> All claim to be certified as "perfectly like kubernetes" because they are. they are directly built from the go sources, all are wrappers around the meat of k8s. (which are the various control loops packaged into services like api-server, kubelet, schedulker,…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Minikube now supports rootless podman driver for running Kubernetes

    “Thanks for clearing that up. I remember hearing that development of docker-engine was ceasing, but could obviously live on as it was forked. I guess rootless is some of the work that Docker (company) wanted to keep proprietary and out of this open-source project. Really quite a…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

CO

abiosoft · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS31.5K
FORKS636
COMMITS715
CONTRIBUTORS107
VERSIONv0.10.3
UPDATED17 days ago
GomacOSContainerKubernetesMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • Through the command line interface, you can run containers with Docker, container or Incus runtimes.
  • By enabling optional Kubernetes support, you can manage the cluster in the local environment.
  • On devices with Apple Silicon processors, you can configure GPU-accelerated containers for AI workloads.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Colima: Container runtimes on macOS (and Linux) with minimal setup

    “We migrated all our devs to colima and it's been pretty good. Don't want to deal with Docker (the company) and don't use any of the "features" of Docker Desktop. The only actual issue we've seen is the way folder syncing works includes a slight delay, which has caused some unit…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Colima: Container runtimes on macOS (and Linux) with minimal setup

    “I really like .devContainers in VSCode, but I really don't like Docker. I use Podman on Fedora which switched to cgroups v2 a long time ago, and while it works ok almost some of the time, it's inconsistent when sharing my devcontainer setup with my macOS colleagues. What are…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

HE

Helm

100

helm · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS30.4K
FORKS8.0K
COMMITS—
CONTRIBUTORS1.0K
VERSIONv4.2.3
UPDATEDyesterday
GoKubernetesPackage ManagerApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can find popular software in Helm Chart format and run it on Kubernetes.
  • You can share your own applications as a Helm Chart and create repeatable compilations of Kubernetes applications.
  • You can manage Kubernetes manifest files wisely and control versions of Helm packages.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Helm: Personal Email Server

    “> For example, in a power outage, Helm won't work. I mean you can connect it to a Uninterupptible Power Supply "USP". It's not clear if they have a high power USB connector to connect USB batteries, however: "Built-in battery backup for safe shutdown On mode: 10 W Standby: 0.4…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Helm: Personal Email Server

    “> The odds that someone compromises a Helm update and the odds that someone walks out of us-east2a with a drive are not in the same ballpark. Sure, but why are you comparing a software compromise against physical access? There are attacks that work against cloud providers which…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

HA

goharbor · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS29.7K
FORKS5.4K
COMMITS12.8K
CONTRIBUTORS344
VERSIONv2.15.2
UPDATEDyesterday
GoContainer RegistryCloud NativeSecurityApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • With role-based access control, you can manage users' authority towards image and Helm graphics.
  • You can regularly scan images for vulnerabilities and prevent the distribution of risky content.
  • With the policy-based replication feature, you can even images between different registers.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (980)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Europe's highest court has rejected the 'safe harbor' agreement

    “That's not what my lawyer says. Our servers are only in the US and we were instructed that if we were to accept European customers we needed to go through the Safe Harbor process.”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    We only ever talk about the third attack on Pearl Harbor

    “It's very likely that Pearl Harbor was intentional to get popular support for entering World War 2. There's evidence that the president had been briefed on the attack and they intentionally did not move the fleet.”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

DA

dapr

100

dapr · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS26.2K
FORKS2.2K
COMMITS7.0K
CONTRIBUTORS322
VERSIONv1.18.4
UPDATEDtoday
GoDistributed SystemMicroserviceWorkflowApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • Through Durable execution and workflows, you build AI agents and multistep processes.
  • You configure interservice secure communication and status management over the standard API.
  • You run distributed applications in Kubernetes and cloud environments with event-based messaging architectures.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Dapr: an open-source project to make it easier to build microservices

    “Right, I know the example is somewhat hyperbolic - but one could argue that it's quite possible to build a micro service architecture around zeromq or rabbitmq - and those systems should (in theory) allow you to max out your modern hardware. So in the sense that you might not…”

  • ↑ PositiveHacker News

    Dapr: an open-source project to make it easier to build microservices

    “Far from it. Although Dapr borrowed the Actor Framework and Stateful features from Service Fabric, There are a couple of major differences. a) Stateful services: Your code + data wont' live together on dapr. You would need an additional I/O hop to access cosmos or redis [or your…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

RA

rancher · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS26.0K
FORKS3.2K
COMMITS—
CONTRIBUTORS411
VERSIONwindows-agent-v0.2.0-rc2
UPDATEDtoday
kubernetescluster-managementrancherEnterpriseApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can start the installation of Rancher with a single command via Docker.
  • You can manage Kubernetes cluster according to the supported operating system and hardware requirements.
  • You manage multiple Kubernetes clusters from one center and regulate access powers.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (3,409)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Rancher Desktop, a Docker Desktop Replacement

    “Or even small. At work, I advised that we just pay for Docker Desktop. We got it for free for a long time. Our reason for not paying is that we're an Artifactory shop, so their Docker Enterprise offering wasn't really attractive to us. But we're easily getting $5/dev/mo worth of…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Rancher Desktop, a Docker Desktop Replacement

    “There is absolutely nothing wrong or illegal with companies offering new additional products. You're not cornered when you can freely choose to buy the enterprise product depending on whether you get any value from it or stick with the open-source version which remains available…”

Verified against README · Oct 25, 2026 · source

CI

cilium · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS25.7K
FORKS4.2K
COMMITS42.8K
CONTRIBUTORS1.3K
VERSIONv1.9.9
UPDATEDtoday
GoEbpfService MeshApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You build a flat L3 network structure that covers multiple clusters with local routing or tunneling modes.
  • You implement network policies at L3-L7 level using an identity-based security model independent of network addressing.
  • You use it as a substitute for the kube-proxy component by providing distributed load balancing for interpod and external services.
Heads up
  • • High number of open issues (1,037)
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    Cilium 1.0: Bringing the BPF Revolution to Kubernetes Networking and Security

    “Hi, A Cilium contributor here. There is a native integration with Istio, you can read tested at the following url: Last week was the Kubecon Europe, Thomas Graf, founder of the project, presented some new improvements made in Envoy and TLS integration. Here are the slides:…”

  • • NeutralHacker News

    Cilium 1.0: Bringing the BPF Revolution to Kubernetes Networking and Security

    “I can’t be the only person thinking “What the hell is BPF?”. I know that probably means I’m not the audience but it wouldn’t hurt them to just state that the very first line. Updated with article about BPF: Really good talk by the Cilium folks that explains these concepts:”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

DO

louislam · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS24.7K
FORKS856
COMMITS370
CONTRIBUTORS106
VERSION1.5.0
UPDATED8 days ago
TypeScriptDockerContainer ManagementSelf-HostedMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can create, edit and manage Docker Compose files via the web interface.
  • You can automatically convert the Docker run commands to the compose.yaml format.
  • You can control stacks on different Docker servers through a single interface.
User reviews
  • ↑ PositiveGitHub Issue

    Is this project still actively developed?

    “I know Uptime-Kuma has priority, it's an amazing tool and we use it for more than 1300 monitors. Thank you for that and for doing all this work for the community without compensation. But dockge is one of the best tools for container and compose management, and I was wondering…”

  • ↓ NegativeGitHub Issue

    stack marked as "exited" when conatiners are running

    “### ⚠️ Please verify that this bug has NOT been reported before. - [X] I checked and didn't find similar issue ### 🛡️ Security Policy - [X] I agree to have read this project [Security Policy]( ### Description I'm trying to deploy this project using dockge but it was marked as…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

WI

winboat-org · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS23.3K
FORKS760
COMMITS373
CONTRIBUTORS44
VERSIONv0.9.2
UPDATED27 days ago
TypeScriptElectronDockerLinuxMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can perform automatic Windows installations by selecting your preferences and features over the interface.
  • You can run individual Windows applications integrated into your Linux desktop stream like local windows.
  • You can access the full Windows desktop experience when you need it.
User reviews
  • • NeutralHacker News

    WinBoat: Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration

    “Sure, Wine when it works. It doesn't always, and it looks like this WinBoat will work when Wine doesn't. I'm currently using it for SIL's Fieldworks Language Explorer, which did not run under Wine.”

  • ↓ NegativeHacker News

    WinBoat: Run Windows apps on Linux with seamless integration

    “Hey HN, creator here. (I added my HN profile to GitHub Socials if you'd like to verify) Honestly, I did not expect WinBoat to blow up as much as it did. I have never released desktop software before that got this large of an audience, I'm equally amazed and humbled by how many…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

GE

jhipster · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS22.5K
FORKS4.2K
COMMITS61.8K
CONTRIBUTORS301
VERSIONv9.3.0
UPDATEDtoday
JavaTypeScriptMikro HizmetWeb DevelopmentApache-2.0

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can create modern web applications based on Angular, React, or Vue.
  • You can install microservice architectures with SQL or NoSQL database options.
  • You can manage application development processes using Maven or Gradle configurations.
User reviews
  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    Angular 2 roadmap

    “# This is a global ticket listing tasks for Angular 2 support, originally coming from [this thread in the dev mailing list]( **Edit:** @jhipster/developers if you have started working on any of the item below, please edit this comment and add your name after the item. Once…”

  • • NeutralGitHub Issue

    Composite primary key support

    “##### **Overview of the issue** Hi guys, I'm working on the support of composite primary keys in jhipster. the goal is to allow use cases where we for complex table relationships... This thread will help follow advancement of the work and discuss design choices that need to be…”

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source

RE

recommenders-team · Containers & Kubernetes

STARS22.0K
FORKS3.3K
COMMITS9.7K
CONTRIBUTORS116
VERSION1.2.1
UPDATEDtoday
PythonÖneri SistemleriMakine ÖğrenmesiData ScienceMIT

Common commercial products in this category: Docker Desktop, Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS

What can it do?
  • You can prepare and upload data for different suggestion algorithms.
  • You can train classical and deep learning models and perform hyperparameter optimization.
  • You can evaluate the models you have developed with offline metrics and take them into the production environment.

Verified against README · Oct 26, 2026 · source