this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my limited experience, when Podman seems more complicated than Docker, it's because the Docker daemon runs as root and can by default do stuff Podman can't without explicitly giving it permission to do so.

99% of the stuff self-hosters run on regular rootful Docker can run with no issues using rootless Podman.

Rootless Docker is an option, but my understanding is most people don't bother with it. Whereas with Podman it's the default.

Docker is good, Podman is good. It's like comparing distros, different tools for roughly the same job.

Pods are a really powerful feature though.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In my limited experience, when Podman seems more complicated than Docker, it’s because the Docker daemon runs as root and can by default do stuff Podman can’t without explicitly giving it permission to do so.

Can't argue with that. There's some truth to this.

99% of the stuff self-hosters run on regular rootful Docker can run with no issues using rootless Podman.

If this figure was even close to being remotely true, everyone would have moved to rootless containers by now.

Rootless Docker is an option, but my understanding is most people don’t bother with it. Whereas with Podman it’s the default.

These two share the same set of problems. People don't want to downgrade from a "working" docker to a rootless "safer" docker that comes with more usability headaches.

Docker is good, Podman is good. It’s like comparing distros, different tools for roughly the same job.

Not really. The two are really different underneath but on surface they may look like they are overlapping solutions to the untrained eye.

Pods are a really powerful feature though.

Last time I was giving podman a try, I didn't find anything really special about pods. Maybe it just didn't click for me or I was not the intended audience.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

on surface they may look like they are overlapping solutions to the untrained eye.

You'll need to elaborate on this, since AFAIK Podman is literally meant as a replacement for Docker. My untrained eye can't see what your trained eye can see under the surface.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The two are not hot-swappable solutions (as much as podman tries to act as a drop-in replacement for docker). Trying to replace one with the other after coming from extended use of either will immediately let you know of the stark differences between them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Perhaps I misunderstand the words "overlapping" and "hot-swappable" in this case, I'm not a native english speaker. To my knowledge they're not the same thing.

In my opinion wanting to run an extra service as root to be able to e.g. serve a webapp on an unprivileged port is just strange. But I've been using Podman for quite some time. Using Docker after Podman is a real pain, I'll give you that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I am not a native english speaker either but it seems like you are trying to understand those two words outside of their context as used in the sentences I've replied. They are only meant to be understood in the context of the conversation. In this case, the two terms mean almost interchangable. Look up the meaning of both words and try to apply them as previously used.

In my opinion wanting to run an extra service as root to be able to e.g. serve a webapp on an unprivileged port is just strange.

Often times we don't get to choose the software solutions that we will eventually use, they choose us. Colloquially speaking.