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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (4th)
Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
14th
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 September 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 4.2%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portainer is 5.4%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Docker4.2%
Portainer5.4%
Other90.4%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers application conversion to Docker image and a mature environment
The learning curve with Docker is huge and extensive. Adopting Docker is a bit difficult because it requires a lot of expertise and background, including an understanding of networking and security concepts. Many professionals are facing issues with the different architectures that interact with each other in Docker. Whenever in our company, we are working with the production environment, professionals are hesitant to adopt Docker due to the extensive learning curve, and most of the team members in our company are more accustomed to an environment like VMware instead of Docker. Docker runs on scripts, so if AI can automate most of the scripting process in Docker, it would be a great advantage in the future version of Docker. As of now, we can create scripts utilizing most of the functions within Docker, but that initial planning phase wherein to understand exactly how you will plan for the resources, how you will convert applications into a Docker-based image, and similar tasks needs to be simplified so that more professionals can adopt Docker.
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

"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."
"The solution is stable."
"The deployment is quite fast, which is beneficial."
"It is a quite mature technology."
"The most valuable feature of Docker is its integration with other solutions, such as KVM and AlmaLinux."
"We use Docker to facilitate deployment, updates, and management."
"We are able to stop our containers or stop the service with a single command."
"Docker is easy to understand and follow. It provides good scalability to the application."
"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

"Owing to a few shortcomings in its stability, I would say that its stability can be improved."
"The solution could offer better documentation."
"Docker could improve by having security vulnerability reports."
"The runtime and security could improve in Docker. Security is paramount in the cloud and important."
"I advise new users to review their website, commands, and the steps for creating images."
"The security layer is very vulnerable, although they are working to improve the system hardening and email hardening."
"Sometimes there's a bug or defect in the solution. However, the Docker team works on fixing it."
"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."
"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Docker has made some changes and there is an enterprise version that is affordable."
"I would rate the pricing of Docker as ten out of ten"
"The solution is an open-source technology and not a commercial product. However, you will have to pay sometimes. The tool's pricing depends on the vendor."
"For commercial use, it's about $30 per month. The license itself isn't expensive, but if there are many users, the price becomes high."
"We use the open-source version."
"It's free."
"Regarding pricing, we primarily use AWS for our deployments since we have funding for it. We don't spend much on Docker-specific services, just the containerization product. Docker Hub isn't particularly expensive either, so overall, the pricing is pretty reasonable."
"The product is not expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise34
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker?
Regarding the cost, Mirantis Container Cloud is cheaper than other solutions like Red Hat. The license costs around 10,000 Indian rupees per year.
What needs improvement with Docker?
Mirantis Container Cloud should have AI integration tools, which are not available right now. These tools should assist in app scalability and deployment error handling.
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: September 2025.
867,676 professionals have used our research since 2012.