Docker Alternatives & Competitors

Overview of Docker Alternatives for Application Testing and Development

Docker is an open software to develop, ship, test, and run your applications. It creates containers that contain the application code and configuration details for quicker software deployment in any operating system. With this application testing software, you can create a package and run your application in an isolated environment, i.e., a container. Containers can be shared with team members to quickly access the application and its components.

However, there are certain drawbacks with Docker that make developers shift to apps better than Docker such as no support for auto-scaling, multiple procedures, data recovery, etc.

Why Users are Looking for an Alternative to Docker?

• Auto-Scaling: It does not support auto-scaling like Kubernetes
• Ease of Use: Docker has a complex learning curve
• Functioning: It might not perform properly in non-native environments
• Container Orchestration: The container orchestration tool is difficult to use.

Must-Have Features in Any Software Similar to Docker

Here are some features that should be there in any software like Docker-

• Public Repositories: The availability of public repositories in applications like Docker will help to host images to be accessed by everyone involved in the application development procedure.
• Private Repositories: These repositories help in controlling access to images present in these repositories. It ensures that unauthorized people cannot access or view the images. The access is provided to specific groups, teams, or any individual.
• Advanced Image Management: The advanced image management in Docker similar tools will help you to sort, filter, and find images via different tags, status, data, etc.
• Private Repository Collaborators: The collaborators of private repositories get access to all the images. This helps them easily push images to the repository to keep them secure. However, it does not allow them to remove or change the repository status from private to public.
• Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM) Support: SCIM helps with automatic user provisioning and de-provisioning for the organization through its identity provider (IdP). With it, you can create new users, update users' profiles, delete users, deactivate and reactivate users, and more.
• Extensions: The best Docker alternative should provide ample extensions to increase application development functionalities like debugging, testing, networking, security, and building functionalities. Some extensions include Ambassador Telepresence, Aqua Trivy, Mini Cluster, Dive In, etc.
• Registry Access Management: With the availability of this functionality, businesses can ensure that the website developers have access to those registries that are allowed to them. Some registries that can be restricted include Amazon ECR, GitHub Container Registry, Google Container Registry, etc.
• Local vulnerability scans: The scanning helps developers to go through the security status of all container images and take necessary steps to resolve issues with scanning. This helps developers to deploy applications more securely.
• Role-based Access Controls: The ability to create role-based access controls for your containers will help you to create and manage permissions based on the organization’s chart. This will ensure that only authorized personnel have access to the application development database.
• Automated Builds: Apps better than Docker should be able to develop the images through the source code in an external repository and push these images to the image repository. This feature will also help in creating branches and tags for the images.

What to Consider When Looking for Software Like Docker?

Consider the following factors to choose the suitable alternative to Docker Desktop

• Free Trial/ Demo: Check whether the vendor offers a free trial or demo to understand the solution and help you to decide whether it is worth your money.
• Pricing Mechanism: Check out its pricing plans whether they are based on monthly or annual timelines and decide which one is right for your business.
• Audit Logs: Make sure Docker similar tools offer audit logs to create a list of all the activities taking place at the company and repository stages including the changes made to the container images.
• Authentication: The Docker substitute should allow you to authenticate all the user's IDs to ensure that only authorized users have access to the container images.
• Automated tests: The automated testing functionality will help you to automatically test all the changes to your source code repositories with the containers.

Drawbacks of Using Docker

Despite a good software for application development, Docker comes with its own set of cons:

• The data is not saved when the container is deleted. Therefore, data retrieval is difficult if another process requires it.
• You cannot run multiple application testing processes in a single container like LXC.
• Data also gets deleted when the container is deleted.

What Types of Businesses are Looking for an Alternative of Docker?

Docker is most useful for these types of businesses:

• E-Commerce: To create and deploy eCommerce sites through the application containers over multiple operating systems.
• Software: To create software applications through the application container along with the application code, configuration files, and dependencies needed for running.
• Telecommunications: Container technology helps the telecom industry run its applications through application containerslike virtual machines across multiple operating systems.