What is Podman used for?

Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers, images, volumes and pods on Linux, and on Mac and Windows through a managed virtual machine. It is a good fit for running containers without Docker, grouping containers into pods that map to Kubernetes and local container development on Linux.

Is Podman open source?

Yes. Podman is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at podman-container-tools/podman and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Podman is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is Podman an alternative to?

Podman is an open-source alternative to Docker Desktop and OrbStack. Other open-source alternatives to Docker Desktop include Lima, Podman Desktop and Colima.

Is Podman actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Podman was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.1.3, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 33k stars on GitHub.

Podman: open-source alternative to Docker Desktop, OrbStack

About Podman

Podman, short for the POD MANager, manages containers and images, along with the volumes attached to them and pods composed of container groups. It runs containers natively on Linux and works on Mac and Windows through a Podman-managed virtual machine. It is written in Go, released under the Apache-2.0 license, and often used as an alternative to Docker.

Podman is built on libpod, a library in the same repository that exposes APIs for container lifecycle, pods, images and volumes. It supports OCI and Docker image formats, pulls and pushes images with trust verification, builds from Containerfiles or Dockerfiles, and handles checkpoint and restore through CRIU. Networking is handled by Netavark. Major and minor releases arrive four times a year and are PGP signed, with only the most recent release supported upstream.

Key features

Manages containers, images, volumes and pods
OCI and Docker image format support
Builds from Containerfile or Dockerfile
Checkpoint and restore via CRIU
Networking through Netavark
Mac and Windows support via a virtual machine

Good fit for

→Running containers without Docker
→Grouping containers into pods that map to Kubernetes
→Local container development on Linux

Built with: Go; Docker; Kubernetes
Tags: containers; oci; podman; docker-alternative; pods; linux; kubernetes; golang

Podman: questions and answers

What is Podman used for?: Podman is a tool for managing OCI containers, images, volumes and pods on Linux, and on Mac and Windows through a managed virtual machine. It is a good fit for running containers without Docker, grouping containers into pods that map to Kubernetes and local container development on Linux.
Is Podman open source?: Yes. Podman is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at podman-container-tools/podman and is written mainly in Go.
Is Podman free?: Yes. Podman is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is Podman an alternative to?: Podman is an open-source alternative to Docker Desktop and OrbStack. Other open-source alternatives to Docker Desktop include Lima, Podman Desktop and Colima.
Is Podman actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Podman was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v6.1.3, published on 29 September 2026. The project has 33k stars on GitHub.