Docker Desktop Licensing: What Now?

Docker changed its licensing: Docker Desktop is now paid for companies with 250+ employees or $10M+ revenue. This shook the developer world.”””

Alternatives

• **Rancher Desktop**: Free, uses containerd or dockerd, runs on Lima (macOS) or WSL2 (Windows).
• **Podman Desktop**: Daemonless, rootless, open-source.
• **Colima (macOS)**: Lightweight alternative using Lima.

Rancher Desktop Setup

# Install via winget
winget install suse.RancherDesktop

# Switch context
kubectl config use-context rancher-desktop

Key Takeaways

• For startups/individuals, Docker Desktop remains free.
• Evaluate Podman or Rancher if licensing is a concern.