Podman

Podman is Docker without the daemon — a drop-in replacement that runs containers as regular user processes instead of through a privileged background service. Same CLI, same OCI images, better security model. Replace `docker` with `podman` in your commands and most things just work.

If you care about security (rootless by default), licensing (no Docker Desktop fees), or Kubernetes alignment (Podman generates K8s YAML natively), switch. Podman is 30% faster on container startup in benchmarks. Docker Desktop is still better on macOS/Windows for the GUI and extension ecosystem. containerd is the minimal runtime if you just need CRI for Kubernetes.

The catch: Docker Compose support in Podman works but isn't identical — edge cases break. The macOS experience requires Podman Machine, which adds friction. Docker's ecosystem (Docker Hub, Docker Scout, extensions) is deeper. And if your team learned Docker, "just replace docker with podman" still requires retraining and retooling CI pipelines.