> The reason Docker Desktop for Mac looks like you're running Docker on Linux is because... you are. It's running docker in a linux VM for you.
Yes, but that wasn't what I was talking about. Docker Desktop for Mac goes to a lot of trouble to hide the fact that there are two different virtual filesystems involved (Linux vs macOS) and two different networking stacks too. That means scripts which run on Docker for Linux and do stuff involving filesystem/network integration between the host and the container will often work without change on Docker Desktop for Mac. In my past experience, open source alternatives don't offer as seamless integration, they don't do as good a job of hiding the fact that there are two different virtual filesystems and networking stacks, so those kinds of scripts are less likely to work.
Don't know your use case that precisely so can't say if it does a "good job" versus just "a job", and it's been a while since I've used Docker Desktop or macos (though about half of our dev team is using Rancher Desktop on macos right now), but as far as I'm aware it's essentially identical.
FS: Rancher mounts your `/Users/$USER` folder in the VM that Docker is running in. It supports virtiofs on macos (not sure if it's used by default though). As far as I can tell, this replicates the default Docker Desktop setup.
Networking Container -> Host: Connecting to `host.docker.internal` works as expected. On the host I can listen on a port on my host (`nc -l -p 1234`) and connect from a container (`docker run -it --rm alpine nc host.docker.internal 1234`).
Networking Host -> Container: Exposed ports work as I would expect. I can run a container with an exposed port (`docker run -it --rm -p 1234:1234 alpine nc -l -p 1234`) and connect from my host (`telnet localhost 1234`). I can't connect directly onto the docker network bridge (though I'm not sure if that was ever supported on OSX?).
No skin in the game either way here, just with a bunch of people suggesting buying OrbStack (which is OSX only), figured I'd throw Rancher Desktop out as a potentially viable cross-platform alternative that's also free and OSS.