Overview¶
What is Container Desktop?¶
Container Desktop is an open-source alternative to Docker Desktop. It enables you to build, push, pull and run Linux containers on Microsoft Windows, by providing a seamless integration with Docker Engine Community Edition running on Windows Subsystem for Linux. The Container Desktop bundles the open-source docker and docker-compose cli clients for a native and simple user experience.
How it works?¶
Container Desktop Proxy handles the communication with the Docker Engine running in container-desktop distribution within Windows System Linux v2 (WSL2). The proxy enables native docker experience on Microsoft Windows, where it translates Windows Paths to WSL2 paths local to the container-desktop distribution.
With the Container Desktop System Tray Application you can manage the behavior of container-desktop. You can start, stop and restart the Container Desktop Proxy on the Windows Host or Enable or Disable a Docker Engine proxy in any available WSL2 distribution. Container Desktop installs the docker and the docker-compose command line interface tools.
Note: Container Desktop will not support Windows Containers.
Why Container Desktop?¶
- Free and open-source;
- Easy and hassle free installation experience;
- Plain and simple, no unnecessary bells and whistles;