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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

"The ability to use an image with the software built into it, rather than just the software, is beneficial."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I have seen end-to-end performance with Docker. It's a great tool, and it's the most popular container service in the market."
"The initial setup was easy, and you are only required to run commands."
"The most valuable feature is Docker has a fast learning curve."
"The most valuable feature is that it gives you the same environment as on a developer machine as well as a production machine relevant to specifications."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its sandbox environment. It makes it very easy to run and test applications without needing configurations, which is the core advantage of containerization. Kubernetes and Helm are helpful as they provide high-level metrics, making tracking the status of all the containers and applications running easier."
"In our line of work, we've been involved in various sectors, such as industrial products, transportation, client engineering, telecom, and medical. For instance, we're currently developing an IT platform. One key use case we're tackling is device management."
"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

"Management can be improved with the necessary tools for orchestration."
"Sometimes there's a bug or defect in the solution. However, the Docker team works on fixing it."
"The vendor should release a monitoring tool or include monitoring capabilities in Docker"
"Unfortunately, base images are not currently available."
"It could be easier to create images and save them on reports. Just improved development workflow, just quicker, like some better user experience creating the images for the Docker containers."
"The stability could be improved."
"The solution is not easy to manage and it is one of the reasons why people introduce orchestration tools to manage it."
"The command line interface could be more intuitive. I constantly struggle with it."
"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The current cost for us is nothing as an open source."
"We use the open-source version."
"Docker is a free open-source solution."
"Pricing is based on the number of users."
"Docker is a free open-source solution."
"Since Docker is an open-source solution, it is free of cost."
"The offering and service are quite free."
"Docker is a free-to-use solution. However, Docker Enterprise is not free."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
17%
Insurance Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
7%
University
7%
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: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.