GeezerVison is showing github.com — Podman support · Issue #88 · orbstack/orbstack
DescriptionThis is for first-class Podman support, similar to Podman Desktop. It's not planned, but I've opened this issue because it's been mentioned a few times. Please vote 👍 if you're interested.
For now, you can create a Linux machine and install Podman in it. Port forwards, bind mounts, etc. should still work just like normal.
If you're interested in this, please comment and share why. Thanks! Reacted by Danny Lin, redsnapper2006, anarchy89, Thomas Niepraschk, cyenx, Zain, Penelope Liones, 0xF4CED, Dillon, ZhengJin and 560 more Reacted by silverwind Reacted by Brandon Zylstra, qu35t-code, Max Vincent Goldgamer, Sangil Park, Tommaso Ricci, Tommaso Ricci, Barry Morrison, Coffelix, Xander, Nate Meyer and 7 more Reacted by Brandon Zylstra, qu35t-code, Scott Anderson, Shain Singh, Max Vincent Goldgamer, JP Barringer, Sangil Park, Mattèo Gauthier, Domingo Dirutigliano, Gushchin and 21 more Reacted by Brandon Zylstra, qu35t-code, Max Vincent Goldgamer, JP Barringer, Sangil Park, 糊涂, Gushchin, Tommaso Ricci, Tommaso Ricci, ♠️ Thomas Gotwig ♣️ and 13 more Reacted by Brandon Zylstra, Igor Fernandes, qu35t-code, Sean Newell, Max Vincent Goldgamer, Sangil Park, Gushchin, Tommaso Ricci, Tommaso Ricci, Christoph Kücükay and 11 more Activityredsnapper2006 commented on Mar 30, 2023 looking forward with this issue Reacted by xuezhao, d-rmm, 糊涂, Irara, Gushchin, DC Chiu, BBxx99, Steve Mahar and magician kdrag0n commented on May 26, 2023 Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available. Reacted by Wojciech Krawczyk and Tommaso Ricci brandonzylstra commented on Jun 13, 2023
Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available.
Podman is much more secure and also lighter weight. Reacted by Jiahao XU, hiimyusheng, Max Vincent Goldgamer, Markus Mielimonka, Irara, Karol Baraniecki, Gushchin, Chengnan, Andrew, Metin Bektas and 8 more brandonzylstra commented on Jun 13, 2023 Also, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I have heard it said that Podman is the only one that works on Red Hat.
(Not that I'm a fan of Red Hat, but in some situations I have no choice but to work on Red Hat servers.) kdrag0n commented on Jun 15, 2023
Podman is much more secure and also lighter weight.
Lighter, yes, but I don't see how it could be more secure.
Also, I don't know whether this is true or not, but I have heard it said that Podman is the only one that works on Red Hat.
(Not that I'm a fan of Red Hat, but in some situations I have no choice but to work on Red Hat servers.)
That doesn't sound too likely, but even if it were true, it doesn't apply to OrbStack. Since Podman is meant to be compatible with Docker, you can develop locally with Docker and deploy with Podman. kdrag0n commented on Jun 15, 2023 From what I've seen, most people ask for Podman support because they're already using Podman Desktop as a free alternative to Docker Desktop and have gotten in the habit of running Podman instead, in which case you can just alias podman=docker for the most part.
This might be completely off, so it'd be very helpful if more people could chime in. As it stands, it seems like adding Podman would just increase complexity and app size for no good reason because it does mostly the same thing as Docker but with fewer features (e.g. no BuildKit). There must be something I'm missing if so many people have upvoted the issue, and I'd like to understand the use cases and appeal better.
From OrbStack's perspective: We need to keep Docker around because Podman won't cover all use cases. And if Docker already does more than Podman, then why add a second container manager that has fewer features and otherwise does mostly the same thing? It increases complexity, app size, and may cause confusion for users not familiar with the whole Docker/Podman/container scene.
Yes, Podman is lighter and may use fewer resources, but what's the point if most people won't be using it? Reacted by Hao Pi, Yu Liu and Atif Ali Reacted by Gushchin, Tommaso Ricci, Andrew and Томас NobodyXu commented on Jul 24, 2023
Lighter, yes, but I don't see how it could be more secure.
Podman doesn't need root permission to run (I heard that docker has an experimental feature for this?) and also support fuse overlayfs and userspace networking drivers. Reacted by Sean Newell, timelordx, xuezhao, Zakharov Roman, Martin Vlcek, Roland Leitenberger, Max Vincent Goldgamer, Markus Mielimonka, Irara, Tommaso Ricci and 4 more BigBadBassMan commented on Aug 15, 2023 Podman allows running containers as a user (i.e. not as root, which is generally more secure), has tighter integration with SystemD (both for updating/starting containers and running SystemD inside a container) and is considered a stepstone to K8s/K3s due to its native export kube yaml feature.
I'm using Podman primarily to replicate and test SaltStack workflows with SystemD inside multiple containers - a feature not possible with Docker. Reacted by Jiahao XU, dopice, Sean Newell, timelordx, Robert J Spencer, xuezhao, hiimyusheng, Roland Leitenberger, Max Vincent Goldgamer, Mike Anselmi and 10 more zhanglolo commented on Sep 8, 2023 looking forward to this feature. haliliceylan commented on Sep 19, 2023 looking forward to this feature. iMonZ commented on Nov 29, 2023 timelordx commented on Jan 24, 2024 Please, pretty please ... JPBarringer commented on Jan 24, 2024 +1.
Unprivileged containers are a big plus. Also ecosystem reasons, including trust & support for CNCF / OCI tooling beyond Docker. Reacted by xuezhao, Irara, Brett Delle Grazie, Metin Bektas and Onno Lissenberg ryanhiebert commented on Jan 6, 2025 podman's design that integrates with systemd and doesn't require a separate daemon are both design decisions that I find really compelling. I've loved using Orbstack, so I found this issue in seeing if there's some reasonable crossover, thinking that Podman desktop probably doesn't have the deeper Mac integration that Orbstack has. oneleo commented on Jan 11, 2025 Podman is rootless and open source container solutions, and support pod operations like K8S;
Looking forward with this issue! Reacted by Gushchin, Tommaso Ricci, Metin Bektas and Brandon Zylstra oska874 commented on Feb 5, 2025 podman is more safe and performance. Reacted by Ezio, Irara, Gushchin, A Chan, Tommaso Ricci and Brandon Zylstra imgrant commented on Feb 19, 2025 Both Podman (Desktop) and Orbstack are superior experiences to Docker Desktop. I had moved to Podman Desktop from Docker Desktop for a number of reasons (much of which above, but also because we use Podman in some CI pipelines), keeping it around is probably easier than migrating to Orbstack.
However, the biggest benefit for Orbstack supporting Podman natively, for me, would be to avoid having two, separate VMs on my Mac. Reacted by David A. K. Ad., xuezhao, Gushchin, A Chan, Tommaso Ricci, Coffelix, Xander, Metin Bektas and Heechul Ryu appe233 commented on Feb 23, 2025 Yes, looking forward to this. My reason is that podman is rootless. Reacted by Gushchin, Tommaso Ricci and Brandon Zylstra GushchinD commented on Feb 24, 2025 Features that make Podman superior to Docker (in addition to its security, rootless operation, performance, and daemonless architecture):
- Kubernetes Integrations:
- Manifest generation
- Emulation of Kubernetes behavior (e.g., deploying manifests from YAML)
- A more consistent and convenient CLI API (e.g., the ability to pass
--all to the start command)
- The ability to generate systemd unit files for containers
Reacted by Metin Bektas, Onno Lissenberg, Theodoros Orfanidis and Faithful-Mind Reacted by A Chan, Tommaso Ricci, Ricardo Valero de la Rosa and pacaroha mzbgf commented on Apr 9, 2025 Subject: Request for Podman Support – Multi-registry Configuration Flexibility
Hi @kdrag0n and team,
I’d like to share my use case for first-class Podman support in OrbStack, particularly regarding multi-registry configuration.
Why Podman?
-
Flexible Registry Management:
Podman allows defining multiple mirror registries (including private/custom ones) in registries.conf, while Docker only supports mirroring docker.io. For example, my config mirrors docker.io, ghcr.io, and gcr.io to my university’s internal registry:
unqualified-search-registries = ["docker.io"]
[[registry]]
prefix = "docker.io"
location = "docker.nju.edu.cn"
insecure = true
[[registry]]
prefix = "ghcr.io"
location = "ghcr.nju.edu.cn"
insecure = true This is critical for environments with restricted external access (e.g., academic/corporate networks).
-
Migration Pain Point:
When switching from a Podman-based platform (e.g., Linux) to OrbStack (Docker-only), I must rewrite all deployment commands to explicitly use mirrored registry URLs (e.g., docker.nju.edu.cn/nginx instead of nginx). Native Podman support would preserve compatibility.
Suggestion
Even partial Podman support (e.g., registries.conf compatibility) would significantly improve workflows for users relying on multi-registry setups.
Thanks for considering this feature! I’m happy to provide more details if needed. Reacted by 糊涂, Gushchin, F Harvell, Vlad Ivanov, ifjq217, crion66, Lygon Bowen-West, Andrew, Ben Cochez, Anye and 18 more Reacted by Gushchin, Vlad Ivanov, Ricardo Valero de la Rosa, pacaroha, Coffelix and Xander Reacted by Gushchin, Vlad Ivanov, pacaroha, Coffelix and Xander Reacted by Coffelix jgoodall commented on Sep 24, 2025 Yes please! My reason is that podman is security and less resource intensive. Reacted by Yevhen Zakarliuka JiveOff commented on Oct 1, 2025 Looking forward to this 👍🏻 ghostsquad commented on Oct 22, 2025 In 4 1/2 short months, this feature request will be 3 years old. 😳 Not holding me breath that this will get Podman support. Reacted by Yevhen Zakarliuka, Brandon Zylstra, Metin Bektas and Okiki Ojo 392781 commented on Dec 26, 2025
Would anyone interested in this care to share why you want Podman support? I'm not sure I understand how it's useful if Docker is already available.
You're building a close-source, licensable, subscription based containerization tool and do not know why Podman is useful? Put that revenue to good use by building the most requested feature by your users or at least read up on containerization with Podman @kdrag0n 🙄 Reacted by Birger Johan Nordølum, mvllow, Alexander Kim, David, Chris/0, Arne Molland, Boabdil Perez and Shaohuang Chen timcharper commented on Mar 8, 2026 podman in podman is richer than docker in docker. Podman can be configured to first use a read-only folder of image layers before attempting to pull. Meaning... less copying and less downloading and better shared memory usage when running multiple dev environments.
Reacted by Jiahao XU, Metin Bektas, Roman Zhuzha, Okiki Ojo, Faithful-Mind, Iñaki Arango, Christopher Yovanovitch, lihsai0 and David A. K. Ad. sobbybutter commented on Jun 10, 2026 aretrace commented on Jul 24, 2026 podman podman Podman PODMAN! Reacted by Marco Pfatschbacher Reacted by David A. K. Ad. and emizuki Reacted by Mashiro magichrist commented on Aug 4, 2026 been 3 years and still nothing panned out, dead Issue.
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