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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (4th)
Portainer
Ranking in Container Management
14th
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 September 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Docker is 4.2%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portainer is 5.4%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Docker4.2%
Portainer5.4%
Other90.4%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers application conversion to Docker image and a mature environment
The learning curve with Docker is huge and extensive. Adopting Docker is a bit difficult because it requires a lot of expertise and background, including an understanding of networking and security concepts. Many professionals are facing issues with the different architectures that interact with each other in Docker. Whenever in our company, we are working with the production environment, professionals are hesitant to adopt Docker due to the extensive learning curve, and most of the team members in our company are more accustomed to an environment like VMware instead of Docker. Docker runs on scripts, so if AI can automate most of the scripting process in Docker, it would be a great advantage in the future version of Docker. As of now, we can create scripts utilizing most of the functions within Docker, but that initial planning phase wherein to understand exactly how you will plan for the resources, how you will convert applications into a Docker-based image, and similar tasks needs to be simplified so that more professionals can adopt Docker.
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

"It is neat and very flexible."
"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."
"We are able to stop our containers or stop the service with a single command."
"The ability to use an image with the software built into it, rather than just the software, is beneficial."
"Docker is highly scalable."
"The most valuable features of Docker are its security, detailed documentation, and ease of use, and the Docker Swarm is not as complex as Kubernetes."
"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."
"It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"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."
"The vendor should release a monitoring tool or include monitoring capabilities in Docker"
"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 volumes for persistent storage could be more user friendly right out of the box."
"Docker volumes. When I integrated volumes, I faced challenges. I have not essentially used add volumes to the existing instances."
"I would like to see a single package image orchestration bundled together."
"The product does not have an extensive documentation. The tool does not have good scenarios. We have to go through the GitHub repository and investigate similar scenarios. Also, if you are copying multiple things, then you can jeopardize the copy number. The copying aspect also lacks a UI part. We also need to limit the memory."
"There may not be much room for improvement with Docker as it has greatly evolved. However, one area that could be improved upon is the documentation on their website which was once easy to follow but has become quite terrible with numerous versions being released. As an example, the installation process for Docker now requires more than just a one-line command, causing inconvenience. Additionally, based on my experience as a college instructor, teaching students to install Docker was a difficult task due to the lack of straightforward and easy-to-follow documentation. Docker should focus on improving their documentation to make it more user-friendly for all."
"Portainer needs to be more intuitive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is fairly cheap."
"Docker has made some changes and there is an enterprise version that is affordable."
"Regarding pricing, we primarily use AWS for our deployments since we have funding for it. We don't spend much on Docker-specific services, just the containerization product. Docker Hub isn't particularly expensive either, so overall, the pricing is pretty reasonable."
"The solution offers an open-source version that is free and includes a lot of functionality."
"I use the solution's open-source version."
"Docker is cost-effective and open-source."
"The product is a free open-source tool."
"Docker's price is good."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise34
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker?
Regarding the cost, Mirantis Container Cloud is cheaper than other solutions like Red Hat. The license costs around 10,000 Indian rupees per year.
What needs improvement with Docker?
Mirantis Container Cloud should have AI integration tools, which are not available right now. These tools should assist in app scalability and deployment error handling.
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: September 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.