Podman and Docker compared

In short: Podman and Docker operate containers almost identically. The key difference: Podman needs no permanently running service with root rights and runs without administrator rights by default (rootless).

In more detail: The commands are largely compatible: podman run instead of docker run. Many use alias docker=podman.

In detail

Feature	Docker	Podman
Background service	yes (daemon dockerd)	no (daemonless)
Rootless	possible	default
Compose	docker compose	podman compose / podman-compose, Quadlets
Pods	no	yes (like Kubernetes)
systemd	via services	Quadlet files, podman generate systemd
Adoption	very high	default on Fedora/RHEL

• Example: podman run -d -p 8080:80 docker.io/library/nginx.
• Images: both use OCI images, registries: Docker Hub, GitHub Container Registry, Quay.
• Containerfile/Dockerfile: same format.
• Security: rootless operation limits the damage of an escape.
• Development: Docker Desktop (Windows/Mac), Podman Desktop, Rancher Desktop, Distrobox/Toolbox for development environments.

See also: Containers on Linux: namespaces and cgroups, Docker