Discussion summary
Davit introduced a new Apple Containers UI, a ~17MB app, sparking mixed reactions. Some compare it to existing solutions like OrbStack and Docker Desktop, discussing its features and resource usage.
What the discussion says
- Some see the app as a lightweight alternative to larger virtualization tools.
- Critics mention the small size as potentially virtue signaling.
- Others are curious about its performance and integration features.
“complaining about 17mb in 2026 has to be virtue signaling of some sort”
“Containerization has different primitives even though it supports the same OCI images”
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- Hacker News
- Man I wish Apple would add docker api compatibility to Apple containersby ozarkerD
- Really nice. Worked perfectly downloading the runtime and running nginx:latest.
It's getting to the point that scrolling down on Github and seeing Claude as a contributor is a signal the app will be good (Native feeling, no Electron, etc)
by internet2000 - I've been a fan of Orbstack for make 2 years or so. Worth the cost for me because it's so well integrated and fast and docker command compatible.
I'll give this a try though.
by dllrr - Ha! Looks like we built the same thing: https://container-ui.fly.dev/
Now I wish I hadn't burned all those tokens!
by kylemclaren - Other recent vibe-coded projects providing similar interfaces:by bbg2401
- What stood out to me more than this particular project is the visible acceleration of a phenomenon many of us could foresee, especially over the last year or so: people can build a version of the same idea faster than ever.
After like 10 minutes of searching I found multiple similar swift projects (most of them are just a couple of weeks or months old):
https://github.com/tdeverx/contained-app https://github.com/nico81/iContainer https://github.com/wouterdebie/davit https://github.com/Augani/dory https://github.com/tofa84/berth https://github.com/erdaltoprak/ContainerUtility https://github.com/andrew-waters/orchard
There were more if you include ones with fewer GitHub stars, CLI-only, non-Swift etc. but you get the idea.
People will increasingly be able to build their own version of the software they want. As that happens the value of someone else's decreases. The era of hyper-personal software is coming.
by joohwan - This looks like a really solid app. I like that it's 17 MB and uses the ContainerAPIClient library directly.
28 commits in 3 days, 5,015 lines of Swift, every commit "Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5".
Also neat that it's signed/notarized. I installed it and it downloaded the necessary container platform stuff on first launch.
Suggestion: add a getting started tutorial to the site which suggests an image to try out and has screenshots (or a silent video) showing you how to get that image up and running and what you can do with it.
The create image dialog suggests "nginx:latest" but that's not a great starting demo.
by simonw - My current power move in the age of AI: do nothing.
I had an idea like this and thought I could vibe code it, but then I figured someone else would care more and do it first. I was right!
This looks like a great app and I'm excited to try it out.
Free idea: I would like to be able to "jail" an agent inside a VM and send instructions to the harness from outside the VM to agent(s) installed inside. Ideally there is no Codex/Claude/etc. installed on the host.
More awesome: let me provision multiple user accounts inside the VM and restrict filesystem / network policy by user. Then I can have a dev agent, QA agent, etc. each with its own view of the work. That would be a powerful base layer for further automation.
Of course I should be able to provision various resources "attached" to the VM that agents can use on a permissioned basis; e.g., DB, queue, external volume, and so forth.
by _doctor_love