Comparison

DockZ vs OrbStack

OrbStack is a fast, polished native app. DockZ aims at the same “native and light” experience, but is fully open source and free for commercial use.

At a glance

	DockZ	OrbStack
License	Apache 2.0, free for everyone	Proprietary; paid for commercial use
Source code	Fully open source	Closed source
UI	Native SwiftUI	Native
Docker engine	Upstream `dockerd` in Alpine	Its own optimized stack
General Linux VMs	Alpine / Debian / Ubuntu	Yes
Kubernetes	Multi-node k3s / k8s templates	Built-in k8s
VM snapshots + rollback	APFS copy-on-write	—
Remote Docker engines	SSH / mutual TLS, keys in the Secure Enclave	—

Free and open source (Apache 2.0) — no seat counting, no license audit.
One ~8 MB native app: Docker engine, a Portainer-style dashboard, Multipass-style Linux machines and k3s/k8s playgrounds.
Manage remote Docker hosts over SSH or mutual TLS; TLS keys stay in the Mac's Secure Enclave.
Self-healing VM: if the engine stops answering, DockZ restarts it on its own.

You want OrbStack's maturity and performance tuning (file sharing, networking) and a paid, supported product is fine for your team.
You need more Linux distributions than Alpine, Debian and Ubuntu.

Install DockZ from the DMG and launch it; the first launch builds the VM image and, if you have no docker CLI, installs the official one.
DockZ registers a dockz Docker context: docker context use dockz. Your images, compose files and commands stay the same.
Images live per engine — re-pull them (or docker save / docker load) and recreate volumes you need.

Try DockZ

Free, open source, ~8 MB (3.5 MB download). macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon.

Comparison as of October 2026, based on each product's public documentation. Spotted something out of date? Open an issue.