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How does Docker work on FreeBSD these days? I'd be pretty tempted to switch if I knew most of my normal work would continue on working.

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Docker on FreeBSD works just like on MacOS; you'd use Docker Machine to run the containers on a Linux VM.

containerd is intended to be multiplatform from the start, so hopefully the FreeBSD support will come.

There was a native Docker port for FreeBSD, but it's very old and very unmaintained.

In theory, someone could create a Docker compatible engine using zfs, jails and virtual network adapters. FreeBSD can run Linux/ELF binaries (which is what the old Docker port did).

I've always felt like Docker for Mac/Windows was always a hack. Even the newer versions don't run natively, they just use the standard Win/Mac hypervisor API. On Win/Mac, you still have to VPN into your container network. On Linux, you can communication with containers directly via IP.

Huh, I was under the impression that this was no longer the case and that Hypervisor.Framework removed the need for an intermediate VM.

Am I mistaken? Am I mixing this up with something?

On MacOS, yes.

Docker for Mac still uses an intermediate VM, it's just mostly transparent to the user and doesn't require you to manually muck around with docker-machine.

You can even connect to the console of the VM if you run into issues.

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