Every tool here builds and runs the same OCI images, so the choice is about workflow, platform and licensing, not lock-in. Four situations cover most teams:
A Linux server or CI runner: Docker Engine 514 (Apache-2.0) or Podman 47,580 , both free. Docker 514 has the larger ecosystem and Compose 514 built in; Podman adds rootless-by-default operation, pods and systemd 142,543 integration through Quadlet, and is the default on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 664 , Fedora 1,480 and their derivatives.
Kubernetes 5,150 nodes: neither Docker nor Podman. The kubelet talks to containerd 234,762 or CRI-O 669,542 directly, and images are built in CI with BuildKit 10,294 or Buildah 919,369 .
A personal laptop: any of them, including Docker Desktop 514 's Personal plan and OrbStack 76,715 's free tier.
A company laptop: Docker Desktop needs paid seats from 250 employees or US $10 million in revenue, OrbStack for any business use; the seats buy support, a polished GUI, extensions and single sign-on. Rancher Desktop 40,103 , Podman Desktop 105,833 and Colima 31,010 cost nothing and cover the same command-line workflow with community support.
Compatibility gaps are small but real, and this section met two of them: Podman's OCI builds drop HEALTHCHECK unless you ask for the Docker format, and Podman will not guess a registry for short image names. Compose files that rely on newer Docker features, such as develop.watch, need testing under podman compose. Standardize on one toolchain per team, use fully qualified image names, and keep the Dockerfile free of tool-specific tricks, so that switching later costs an afternoon.