Colima - Docker Desktop Alternative

Colima stands for Containers in Lima, which, in turn, stands for Linux on Mac. Hence Containers in Linux on Mac. Colima replaces Docker Engine. Once Colima is installed and configured, you can interact with it using a regular docker client.

Advantages:

• faster than Docker Desktop
• supports cross-architecture builds

(Dis)Advantage:

• Colima is CLI-only, no GUI

If you need a GUI - look at Podman Desktop

Installation

brew install colima

Also:

brew install docker docker-compose

Do NOT install docker via brew with the --cask switch. That will install Docker Desktop instead of CLI.

Use

colima start --cpu 4 --memory 8

If an app reports Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running? to resolve:

export DOCKER_HOST=unix://$HOME/.colima/docker.sock

Troubleshooting the Colima VM

Under the hood, Colima runs an Ubuntu VM which may need to be recycled.

Update and Reboot the Colima VM

$ colima ssh
user@colima:~$ sudo apt update -y && sudo apt upgrade -y
user@colima:~$ reboot

Reset the Colima VM

A more brute-force approach is to delete the VM and provision a new one.

First look at the VM state and how many resources are allocated

$ colima ls
$ colima delete -f
$ colima start -v --cpu 4 --memory 8

Note the -v switch which will produce additional output that can be helpful.