colima

Colima lets you run containers on macOS with minimal setup. Containers are a way to package software so it runs consistently regardless of the machine — Docker is the most popular tool for this, but Docker Desktop on macOS requires a paid license for commercial use. Colima is a free, open-source alternative that sets up a lightweight virtual Linux machine in the background and runs container runtimes inside it, so you can use Docker, Containerd, or Incus from the macOS command line as if you were on Linux.

Getting started is simple: install Colima via Homebrew (a macOS package manager) with one command, then run "colima start" and your container environment is ready. You can then use the standard Docker commands you already know. Colima supports automatic port forwarding (so web servers in containers are reachable from your Mac), volume mounts (sharing folders between your Mac and the container), and running multiple separate instances.

For teams doing heavier work, Colima can also enable Kubernetes — a system for orchestrating many containers — by adding a single flag at startup. It also supports GPU-accelerated containers for AI workloads on Apple Silicon devices, letting you run AI models locally using backends like Docker Model Runner or Ramalama.

The virtual machine Colima creates can be customized with different CPU, memory, and disk allocations, either through command-line flags or a config file. The project is written in Go, supports Intel and Apple Silicon macOS as well as Linux, and is released under the MIT license.