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Docker vs Portainer comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Docker
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (6th)
Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 2.9%, down from 3.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portainer is 4.5%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rikin Parekh - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful to create sandbox environments to run applications and makes it easy to test them
Overall, setting up the Docker environment is quite easy. Many methods exist, such as using Docker Compose and Docker networks to communicate between containers. The main challenge lies in designing the architecture and integrating different frameworks and microservices. I would rate the ease of setting up the tool at around nine out of ten. The time it takes to deploy depends on the scale of the system. For the early-stage startup I'm currently working with, it doesn't take much time. It's just me handling the deployment. In our early-stage startup, we have a couple of teams with around four to five backend APIs and two front-end services. Deploying these doesn't take much time. My focus is more on minimizing costs due to our lean startup structure.
EB
A GUI solution that helps to administer a docker using a browser
The first time using Portainer involves a learning curve. It takes longer as you're unfamiliar with the processes and might be lazy to consult the manual. Initially, you may rely on intuition within the GUI. However, after repeating the same tasks three or four times, the process becomes much quicker.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Docker is perfect for what I do...The solution is scalable."
"The solution helps save costs."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is that it revolutionized virtualization by providing a new approach with containers that completely nullified the time it used to take to deploy applications on virtual servers, resulting in deployment times that can be as quick as milliseconds, unless it is a heavy application, such as Java. Additionally, resource utilization has greatly improved with Docker, allowing for more resources to be allocated to other tasks. These are a few key features that make Docker a preferred choice."
"Docker packages up an application as a single item that you can then run without the need to install or configure it to work on any specific machine."
"I think that with Docker, it is easy to deploy it on different platforms."
"The solution is easy to install."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is that it provides a containerized environment. The isolation between the environments is beneficial. Additionally, the solution is easy to use."
"Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visually generate volumes and working stacks."
 

Cons

"There are elements of stability that are problematic. One of the most recent upgrades created a major incident on our cloud, whereby the containers were not restarting automatically."
"The vendor should release a monitoring tool or include monitoring capabilities in Docker"
"The solution could improve with a GUI instead of only a command line interface. Having to use the command line interface can be a hassle."
"Docker could improve by having more advanced features."
"The security layer is very vulnerable, although they are working to improve the system hardening and email hardening."
"I would like to see a single package image orchestration bundled together."
"I have encountered network issues while connecting with microservices. I want to optimize the application layers over the bucket. It should also have better documentation."
"Docker can improve the integration with Microsoft Windows. It does not support native installations."
"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its convenience edition is free of cost."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs."
"Customers pay for the license through a yearly subscription model, where they pay per license. This means that the license is based on a subscription, and the customer pays annually for each license they use."
"The product is a free open-source tool."
"Docker is a free tool."
"Docker is cost-effective and open-source."
"The pricing of the solution is fairly cheap."
"There is a license needed to use Docker."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What needs improvement with Docker?
In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.
What do you like most about Portainer?
Portainer comes with the ability to take the information of docker definition. Using it, I can visually observe how the container has been created. It allows me to create networks. I can also visua...
What needs improvement with Portainer?
Portainer needs to be more intuitive.
What is your primary use case for Portainer?
The tool is a GUI that helps to administer a docker using a browser.
 

Comparisons

 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), VMware and others in Container Management. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.