Nerdctl, Docker Alternate

Using Docker in local desktop is not free anymore for large businesses,

Our Docker Subscription Service Agreement includes a change to the terms for Docker Desktop
It remains free for small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in annual revenue), personal use, education, and non-commercial open source projects.

Extracted from, https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop

Many of us using Docker Desktop in day to day activities are part of large businesses. So I tried searching for an alternate and found this.

https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl

nerdctl is Docker compatible CLI for Containerd.

What is Containerd? It is a container runtime.

Who uses Containerd? Docker :blush:

So what is the difference between Docker and Containerd? At a high level, Docker providers rich user interface for users to work with containers.

Okay, now any other alternateives for Docker? Yes. There are few. Even, there is a blog in Docker website about this.

https://www.docker.com/blog/looking-for-a-docker-alternative-consider-this/

Okay, which one works? For me, nerdctl.

I tried podman. But I ran into this issue, https://github.com/containers/podman/issues/11396

I tried nerdctl, couldn’t face any issues so far.

How to run nerdctl in MacOS? Inside Virtual Machine.

Is there any CLI/Tools which can simply this process? Yes, Lima.

https://github.com/lima-vm/lima

How to start?

brew install lima
limactl start

Once you execute above commands, you can see an output where it says, READY.

Then you can start using nerdctl, like below:

lima nerdctl run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

Till I get used to the new command, I thought, I will use an alias in my ~/.zshrc file pointing “docker” to “lima nerdctl” :smile: :smile: :smile: