[miroljub]

Does anyone actually use Podman on its own merit?

The only use case I encountered is people who want to run Docker without root or admin permissions and use Podman just as a drop-in replacement.

[FrenchyJiby]

Podman has good systemd integration, in the form of quadlets.

It lets you define a systemd job with some custom syntax and run it as a systemd service, and even stretches to allow some form of kubernetes YAML to be run as local (single node, rootless) containers!

Real nice.

See previous presentation on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43456934

[sofixa]

All I can think of with this is...

_But why?_

I mean, if you have one container service only and everything else is ran by systemd, then it makes sense to keep it easy. But other than that, why? Systemd's syntax and docs aren't particularly friendly or easy, so it's not like you gain in simplicity vs just running docker/podman-compose, or even a lightweight orchestrator like Nomad.

[FrenchyJiby]

I enjoy:

- seamless container logs (journalctl), no weird separate logger

- service start/stop/enable-at-boot no weird separate command

- integration with system/user slices, triggers, cronjobs (timers), exposing containers as first class commands overall!

Basically it's worth seeing container services work with non-container services.

If you don't like systemd, or have no stake in it, sure, have fun without it, but it's definitely added value when you're running services, and want to start containerizing some of them without abandoning all the good tools you are using in favour of docker logs docker run etc.

[willhbr]

I use it over docker because it has a better license, more easily installed with system package managers (installing docker is a pain, IIRC), is rootless by default, and has a pretty transparent remote API that I can use over SSH to control containers on other machines.

[ludamn]

Besides being a great replacement for docker for development, I use it to run some government GUI apps that I don't want to install on my machine (they have some bg jobs that I prefer not running 24/7). Once I finish running them I just shut down the container and don't have to worry about it.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Are you using Docker on it's own merit or because it's familiar and first?

[miroljub]

I set an "alias docker=podman" and use it as I would use Docker, just without a root or admin account.

[whirlwin]

You're pointing out something important. I think it's feasible for the crowd who dislikes the overall direction Docker has been heading and need a simple drop-in replacement

[regularfry]

The licence is better. That's enough for me.