Docker vs. Portainer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Docker
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Docker Enterprise was sold to Mirantis in 2019; that product is now sold as Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. But Docker now offers a 2-product suite that includes Docker Desktop, which they present as a fast way to containerize applications on a desktop; and, Docker Hub, a service for finding and sharing container images with a team and the Docker community, a repository of container images with an array of…
$0
unlimited public repositories
Portainer
Score 9.6 out of 10
N/A
Portainer is a centralized container management platform for containerized apps and IoT device management. It helps accelerate container adoption and reduce time-to-value on Kubernetes, Docker, and Swarm with a management portal, allowing users to deliver and manage containerized applications from the data center to the edge. Portainer helps - Reduce the operational complexity associated with multi-cluster management Bridge the skills gap and facilitate feature…
$0
Pricing
DockerPortainer
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
unlimited public repositories
Pro
$5.00
per month per user
Team
$7.00
per month per user
Business
$21
per month per user
Portainer Business - 3 Nodes Free
$0
Home & Student
$149
per year
Starter
$995
per year
Professional
$2995
per year
Enterprise
Contact Sales for Pricing
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DockerPortainer
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DockerPortainer
Considered Both Products
Docker
Chose Docker
Our team uses Lando which is built on top of Docker. This makes using Docker even easier.
Chose Docker
It is easy to use. we can manage multiple images in docker hub. Docker desktop is for accessing images in our desktop. It is very much user friendly as compare to podman.
Chose Docker
Docker is by far the industry leader and mainstay when it comes to virtual machines, its really hard to justify using another service like Vagrant. The upcoming monetization of Docker desktop should make things interesting though.
Chose Docker
We need a solution where initially we can use an OS to trigger our pipeline to be used by terraform and then later in ansible. After doing all work it automatically get exited and we can reclaim the space of our VM. So we created a gitlab pipeline and at the initial stage we …
Chose Docker
The features and capabilities provided by Docker are incomparable and much vast in nature. Docker is much light weight and easy to onboard into the tech stack. It is also well supported by Container orchestration systems like Kubernetes which will be critical when applications …
Chose Docker
Did use containerd or LXC for brief evaluation in the past, but settled on Docker and only see Docker as the mainstay for most organizations I worked in, as the container tool of choice so far. Docker is matured, feature-rich, and reliable enough to be the main choice all …
Chose Docker
The reason why we are still using Docker right now is due to that is the best among its peers and suits our needs the best. However, the trend we foresee for the future might indicate Amazon lambda could potentially fit our needs to code enviornmentless in the near future.
Chose Docker
Podman has been used within our Red Hat environment, and although it supports deployments outside of RHEL, it's not as easy as Docker.
Chose Docker
Docker provides is effective container management and orchestration platform. It is highly suitable for Linux environments and allows the easy and quick deployment of production applications Other alternatives use replication and management of the virtual machines. Docker …
Portainer
Chose Portainer
Dyrectorio was nice but it feels unpolished
Ugreen has docker management on its UGOS Pro and it seems quite nice for start but its UI is quite a bit worse then Portainer
Another downside is that its GUI seems to be locked on a specific port for now
Chose Portainer
Portainer is open source and can be installed as a docker container. Portainer can also be used free of charge as a business edition for a limited number of installations. All you have to do is register with Portainer and receive a license key. Portainer is very easy to install …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is very simple to use for anyone who is new to docker and trying to build a server. It makes everything super easy to use because of it’s excellent UI/UX which makes it a good tool for beginners!
Chose Portainer
Initially looked into using Rancher for container management but it is aimed more at kubernetes deployments. I have used both at home and liked Portainer more, especially since we are using docker standalone. From
Chose Portainer
I've only used Portainer for docker management
Chose Portainer
Had already more experience using Portainer and it was covering all immediate needs where scalability was not a concern. Definitely easier to use and to get started for anyone.
Chose Portainer
Azure and AWS have their own issues, especially around complexity just to setup one thing that Portainer can do in 10 seconds. Octopus deploy has excellent logs, analytics and dashboard views - but the configuration is more of a hassle than Portainer. Overall for the projects …
Chose Portainer
I wrote that earlier, I tried Docker desktop so many bugs with WSL and not free and it get sign out every login time, Tried SUSE rancher too complicated and good only for power users and whoever runs Kubernetes and very heavy. tried Dokage very simple and couldn’t do …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is, in my opinion, the most accessible and straight-forward means of entering the world of deploying and managing containers while also maintaining the ability to progress into advanced professional deployments and use.
Chose Portainer
Portainer takes the cup in terms of usability and features. It is also more useful for smaller deployments, whereas Kubernetes in our opinion and experience, could probably be more suited to certain other use cases. Portainer is also a fresh feel among all the preexisting …
Chose Portainer
In Kubernetes management, in my opinion I would say that Lens is superior. But if you only want to manage a few stacks, Portainer is superior because the gui offers a comprehensive way of managing all the deployed images and its versions.
Chose Portainer
Microsoft Azure, and arguably the leader in the field. The most negative point and which made us make the decision not to continue with them and to go with Portainer is the price. This is one of the most important points to consider, especially in small companies.
Chose Portainer
The reason I chose Portainer is that graphically it wins over Yacht, it has many more options to use even in the free version. You can connect more than one environment to one panel which makes it much easier to use multiple instances of Portainer and saves a lot of time.
Chose Portainer
Portainer, Amaze powered by Famous.co and 99tests
Chose Portainer
Portainer is free and a lot easier to live with than hyper-v
Chose Portainer
I am using Rancher in Kubernetes environments. It was really the first product I used with it and never really had time to test out how well Portainer behaves on Kubernetes. For the exact same thing - Docker Swarm management I used Swarmpit some time ago, but I like Portainer …
Chose Portainer
Of course it has to be stacked against Rancher, and to be frank Rancher is great. Honestly the comparision is like comparing MacOS to Windows.
Chose Portainer
Portainer is a user-friendly container management platform focused on Docker, providing a simplified graphical interface. Kubernetes (K8s) is a robust container orchestration platform that automates deployment and scaling, suitable for complex container environments. Docker is …
Chose Portainer
Portainer is a lot easier to use when compared to kubernetes. it is easy to get over whelmed by all the options in kubernetes but portainer makes it simple to build and deploy even to kubernetes.
Chose Portainer
Portainer seems to be the best when you start with small environments and can grow with them.
Portainer is also good for beginners with not too much knowledge about containers.
Finally the start-up with 5 nodes for free was a great benefit.
Features
DockerPortainer
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
Docker
-
Ratings
Portainer
8.5
Ratings
10% above category average
Security and Isolation00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Cluster Management00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Storage Management00 Ratings8.60 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings7.80 Ratings
Discovery Tools00 Ratings8.90 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DockerPortainer
Small Businesses
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DockerPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.3
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DockerPortainer
Likelihood to Recommend
You are going to be able to find the most resources and examples using Docker whenever you are working with a container orchestration software like Kubernetes. There will always some entropy when you run in a container, a containerized application will never be as purely performant as an app running directly on the OS. However, in most scenarios this loss will be negligible to the time saved in deployment, monitoring, etc.
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Many developers, especially lesser experienced developers, don't have a really good background in setting up containers from the command line. Portainer is invaluable to them. Giving a UI to them gives them much more confidence and allows them to learn properties and capabilities of containers under far less stress. On the flip side of this, giving then a UI on a production system can lead to chaos...never give junior developers access to production servers.
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Pros
  • Kubernetes context switching - very handy
  • Integrate well and seamless - No complicated setup and or UX
  • Ease of updating images and etc - very important
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  • Separating server maintenance with application development, providing a clear user interface for developers who don't want to worry about the underlying server.
  • RBAC for container deployment linked to a SAML IDP, not something particularly easy in a native Docker instance but point and shoot in Portainer, allowing the use of Azure / Okta etc to provide user access.
  • Image management with multiple repositories is super clear and reduces incidents
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Cons
  • It will be nice to see an admin UI for configuration of images
  • Container networking can be simplified
  • Data storage/volume management can be simplified
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  • Lack of granular RBAC control: While Portainer does have role-based access control (RBAC) features, they are not as granular as some users would like. Some users have reported that they would like to have more control over permissions for individual users or groups. This would enable more fine-grained control over who has access to which containers or clusters.
  • Limited support for non-Docker container technologies: While Portainer is primarily designed to manage Docker containers, it does have some limited support for other container technologies like Kubernetes and Docker Swarm. However, this support is not as robust as it is for Docker, and some users have reported that they would like to see better support for other container technologies.
  • Limited control over container networking: Portainer's networking features are somewhat limited compared to other container management tools. Some users have reported that they would like more control over container networking, including the ability to create custom networks and control IP addresses.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It is an excellent tool.
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Usability
I have been using Docker for more than 3 years and it really simplifies the modern application development and deployment. I like the ability of Docker to improve efficiency, portability and scalability for developers and operations teams. Another reason for giving this rating is because Docker integrates CI/CD pipelines very well
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Accessibility for Non-Experts: even with some people having a bit longer on-boarding it is still very simple Quick setup is insanely useful, we can get it running in 10 seconds after installing docker Portainer has once again super clean UI and is very user friendly. Deployment/monitoring and management are super easy. I can tell just from a glance if something is out of date (watching at you Watchtower not doing your job for some reason)
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Reliability and Availability
Haven't seen any outages, fatal/unrecoverable errors in my usage so far. Enough said.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Docker Desktop. The CPU high usage is a known issue. Needs fixing. Otherwise, it is great overall. Would not use anything else still.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
One of their staff members jumped on a video call immediately with me and led me through the problem and solution during a quick session of screen sharing. In this day and age that is above and beyond, especially when it comes to software. It took approximately 5-10 minutes to diagnose and fix, including pleasantries!
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
It is really easy. Just follow the documentation.
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Alternatives Considered
We need a solution where initially we can use an OS to trigger our pipeline to be used by terraform and then later in ansible. After doing all work it automatically get exited and we can reclaim the space of our VM. So we created a gitlab pipeline and at the initial stage we defined a docker file which will be our base image and we performed all our activities inside that image to build infrastructure using terraform. Integration we have done in our gitlab pipeline and finally we remove the docker image so that the space can be reclaimed immediately.
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Portainer takes the cup in terms of usability and features. It is also more useful for smaller deployments, whereas Kubernetes in our opinion and experience, could probably be more suited to certain other use cases. Portainer is also a fresh feel among all the preexisting container management solutions and brings positivity and a new breeze in the industry.
Read full review
Scalability
It is the only tool in our toolset that has not [had] any issues so far. That is really a mark of reliability, and it's a testimony to how well the product is made, and a tool that does its job well is a tool well worth having. It is the base tool that I would say any organisation must have if they do scalable deployment.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • With Docker adoption, were able to reduce 40% of the time taken to complete workspace setup
  • Provided the environment packaging / configurability capability which enabled resource sharing and interoperability across teams
  • Were able to leverage off the shelf images provided by leading product companies which increased reliability and security exponently
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  • Instead of having 1 senior who does all the setup, debugging and caretaking of "all things docker" we now split the load on basically everyone in the team. Hard to put into direct numbers but with everyone helping themselves, noone alone is forced into that position "because you know how to do it" and overall we're more productive
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ScreenShots

Portainer Screenshots

Screenshot of Portainer is a universal container management platform to help adopt and manage Docker, Kubernetes, Nomad and Edge environments.