Hey HN! I'm Danny, developer of OrbStack. OrbStack is a new way to run Docker containers and Linux machines on macOS that's faster, lighter, and simpler than existing solutions like Docker Desktop, Colima, and UTM.
Highlight features:
- Native macOS app written in Swift, including Docker GUI
- It's fast. Starts in 2 seconds, optimized networking (34 Gbps) and disk, and Rosetta x86 emulation on Apple Silicon. Bind mounts use VirtioFS with optimizations.
- Lightweight. Low CPU and disk usage, and works with lower memory limits. Average long-term background CPU usage is ~0.1% on M1 (1-5 wakeups per second), compared to 25% with Docker Desktop (180-4600 wakeups/s).
- Simple and easy to use. Minimal setup, drop-in replacement for Docker Desktop, 2-way CLI integration for Linux machines, Docker volumes and file access from Mac and Linux, SSH server for remote VS Code, and SSH agent forwarding out of the box. Network respects VPN and DNS settings.
- Powerful features. Runs Docker containers and full Linux distros side-by-side (plus Kubernetes soon). No admin/root required. Network works with IPv6, ICMP, ping/traceroute, etc. Docker host networking is also supported for most use cases.
I've been working on OrbStack since December. It's been in early access since February. During early access I onboarded 550 people who have generally given excellent feedback, so I'm excited to share the public beta with everyone!
I just tested this with our internal development tool that tightly integrates with the docker CLI and docker-compose. Everything worked immediately out of the box. I'm fairly amazed because we heavily rely on specific output from many different `docker` commands (e.g. `docker system info --format '{{.NCPU}}, {{.MemTotal}}'`).
Seems really fast so far. I was concerned it didn't contain some of the perf improvements like VirtioFS even that appears to be built in.
5 comments
[ 67.2 ms ] story [ 631 ms ] threadHighlight features:
- Native macOS app written in Swift, including Docker GUI
- It's fast. Starts in 2 seconds, optimized networking (34 Gbps) and disk, and Rosetta x86 emulation on Apple Silicon. Bind mounts use VirtioFS with optimizations.
- Lightweight. Low CPU and disk usage, and works with lower memory limits. Average long-term background CPU usage is ~0.1% on M1 (1-5 wakeups per second), compared to 25% with Docker Desktop (180-4600 wakeups/s).
- Simple and easy to use. Minimal setup, drop-in replacement for Docker Desktop, 2-way CLI integration for Linux machines, Docker volumes and file access from Mac and Linux, SSH server for remote VS Code, and SSH agent forwarding out of the box. Network respects VPN and DNS settings.
- Powerful features. Runs Docker containers and full Linux distros side-by-side (plus Kubernetes soon). No admin/root required. Network works with IPv6, ICMP, ping/traceroute, etc. Docker host networking is also supported for most use cases.
If you're curious about how it works, you might find the docs interesting: https://docs.orbstack.dev/architecture
I've been working on OrbStack since December. It's been in early access since February. During early access I onboarded 550 people who have generally given excellent feedback, so I'm excited to share the public beta with everyone!
Seems really fast so far. I was concerned it didn't contain some of the perf improvements like VirtioFS even that appears to be built in.
Love having competition here!