Incus
6.8#3 in container enginesFree planFree planAPILinuxmacOSSelf-hosted
VisitIncus vs Podman Desktop
Podman Desktop
6.1#14 in container runtime softwareFree planFree planLinuxmacOSWindows
VisitWhat both publish
| Fact | Incus | Podman Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Integrations | The documentation links to third-party tools and documents storage drivers including Btrfs, LVM, ZFS, Ceph, LINSTOR, and TrueNAS. | Extensions can add container engines such as Podman or Docker, virtual machine integrations such as Lima, and tools such as Kind or Compose. |
| Purpose | Incus is a system container, application container, and virtual machine manager. | Podman Desktop is a graphical developer tool for creating, managing, and running containers, pods, and Kubernetes workloads locally. |
| Security | The project highlights unprivileged containers, resource restrictions, and authentication as security measures. | The product site describes Podman's security foundations as daemonless, rootless containers, SELinux support, network policy enforcement, and immutable containers. |
| Support | Community support is available through the Linux Containers forum, and Zabbly provides commercial support for users of its Debian or Ubuntu packages. | The documentation directs users to troubleshooting guides and the project repository for unresolved issues; extension documentation points users to Discord for assistance. |
Incus plans
- IncusFree
Podman Desktop plans
- FreeFree
Pick Incus if…
Incus suits developers and operators managing container or virtual-machine workloads who want shared storage and networking, API access and integration options. Its daemon requires Linux, even though client applications are available on other platforms.
Pick Podman Desktop if…
Podman Desktop suits developers who want a graphical interface for local container and Kubernetes work. It can also suit users of Docker-compatible applications or tools who want to use a Podman engine.