Kubernetes with Rancher Desktop

I loved using Docker Desktop, however a few months ago, I picked up Rancher Desktop. After using it for almost 3 months now, here are some quick insights I got from this tool.

1. Rancher Desktop is a very mature open-source tool for Mac, Windows and Linux users who are looking for an alternative to Docker Desktop. It provided me everything I needed which was available in Docker Desktop.
2. Allowed me to run any/multiple versions of Kubernetes and container management on my laptop.
3. Provided me an option to build, push, pull, and run container images using dockerd (uses Moby internally).
4. I could also run the containers that I built directly on Kubernetes without a need for the container registry.

Rancher Desktop leverages a virtual machine to run dockerd and Kubernetes.

I have not tried the windows version however the document says that Windows Subsystem for Linux v2 is leveraged for Windows systems.

It uses Kubernetes k3s (https://k3s.io/) also referred to as Lightweight Kubernetes.

Just download the run the Rancher Desktop to get started.

For more details on how to use Rancher Desktop refer to https://rancherdesktop.io/