Rancher Desktop 40,103 (github.com/rancher-sandbox/rancher-desktop (https://github.com/rancher-sandbox/rancher-desktop 7,360 ), Apache-2.0, from SUSE) is the closest free counterpart to Docker Desktop 514 on Windows, macOS and Linux. Like Docker Desktop (Desktop Architecture), it runs a small Linux VM (WSL2 6 on Windows, Lima on macOS and Linux) and wraps a GUI and command-line tools around it, but it lets you choose the engine: dockerd (moby), so the ordinary docker and docker compose commands work, or containerd 234,762 with nerdctl 10,397 . It also bundles k3s 51,195 , a single-node Kubernetes 5,150 whose version you pick from a list, so the Kubernetes of Kubernetes is a checkbox away; kubectl 5,150 , Helm 29,435 and Trivy 67,732 come with it. Version 1.24.0 bundles Docker Engine 29.6.2 514 and Compose 5.3.1 514 .
Not run here: this book's host is a WSL2 distribution driven from the command line, and Rancher Desktop is a desktop application that would add its own WSL2 distributions and a second Docker Engine beside the one every section uses. It installs from an MSI on Windows and a DMG on macOS, both from the project's GitHub 29 releases, and its documentation recommends 8 GB of memory and 4 CPUs. Quit Docker Desktop before starting it, since both expect to own the docker command's default socket.