[mstade]

I replaced my Docker usage entirely with OrbStack[1] a few months ago, and have had zero issues with it so far. Great product that I happily pay a license for.

My usage is fairly basic though and I'm sure mileage varies, but for my basic web dev setup it's been perfect.

[1]: https://orbstack.dev/

[jFriedensreich]

orbstack is just a vm provider for docker on mac, colima offers the same features without a ui and is a great open replacement but as neither supports podman both are not really relevant to the podman discussion.

[epistasis]

The UI of OrbStack is probably one the biggest features, so a replacement without the UI doesn't make a ton of sense for most people that like OrbStack.

[nicce]

> orbstack is just a vm provider for docker on mac

”just” is a big statement here. Performance between colima and OrbStack are from different planets.

Apple just released their own runtime so that is also worth inspecting.

[mdaniel]

> but as neither supports podman both are not really relevant to the podman discussion

FWIW lima (upon which COlima was built) ships with "boot me up a podman": <https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/blob/v1.2.1/templates/podman...> and <https://github.com/lima-vm/lima/blob/v1.2.1/templates/podman...>

I can't think of any stellar reason why colima couldn't also support it, since they even go out of their way to support Incus as a runtime, but I don't currently have the emotional energy to prosecute such a PR

[pxc]

It's more general than that, closer to WSL. I usually use Podman Desktop for container stuff, but I like OrbStack for managing Linux VMs. It has some really slick integrations and it performs very, very well.

[corv]

I've replaced my OrbStack usage entirely with Podman Desktop and have zero issues with it, unlike with OrbStack.

In particular the 1TB VM disk image OrbStack uses wreaks havok with deduplicating backups. Their disk cache also caused me hours of debugging why my assets weren't up-to-date.

Admittedly the OrbStack GUI is super snappy tho.