

This is because, as mentioned, Docker Desktop is focused on development and testing of containerized applications while Windows Server is supposed to run production scenarios. First, Docker Desktop is not available for Windows Server. On Windows Server, the story is different. Updates to Moby are underway to move it to containerd.Īt the end of the day, you operate either Linux or Windows containers via Docker Desktop on Windows 10 or 11 pretty much the same way – either via the GUI or CLI. When you switch to Windows containers, is calls into the Windows APIs via the Host Compute Service (HCS). When you switch to Linux containers on Docker Desktop, it uses WSL 2 to run a Linux utility VM that runs your containers via containerd. That is true for Linux containers, but not yet for Windows containers.

The reason this is important is because under the hood, the Moby project calls into containerd – a container runtime that has been accepted as the default container runtime for running containers on Kubernetes. It is important to understand that Docker Desktop is a commercial product from the Docker company that follows the updates to the open-source Moby project.

Docker Desktop gives you the option to switch between Linux containers – which use WSL 2 in the background – and Windows containers – which use the underlying containers feature on Windows.ĭocker Desktop is built from an open-source project called Moby. You can run both Windows and Linux containers, albeit, not at the same time. If you are running containers on a Windows client machine, Docker Desktop is likely the preferred option to run containers. It provides a nice, friendly GUI and CLI to manage your container images and containers running locally. Docker Desktop is a one-click-install tool focused on developers writing applications for containers and micro-services. Most likely, you are familiar with Docker Desktop. This is another blog post on a topic that I constantly see on forums such as Reddit, StackOverflow, and Docker forum – what is the deal with Docker Desktop on Windows versus Windows Server? I decided to write this blog post so it’s clear why and what works on a Windows client or Windows Server when it comes to Docker and Docker Desktop.ĭocker Desktop, Windows and Linux containers, and container runtimes
