A fully native macOS app for Apple's container platform. Run Linux containers on Apple silicon; no Docker Desktop required.
Free & open source · MIT licensed · Signed & notarized
Requires an Apple silicon Mac running macOS 15 or later.
Or via Homebrew: brew install wouterdebie/tap/davit
Davit talks directly to Apple's open-source container daemon over XPC; the same wire path the CLI uses. No Electron, no web views, no background agents of its own.
Start, stop, restart and delete with live CPU, memory and IP on every row. Streaming logs with follow & boot mode, live stat charts, and raw config inspection.
Open an interactive shell in any running container, straight into Terminal or iTerm; over the native API, no CLI needed.
Containers are immutable, so Davit prefills a new one from the old config with the image's entrypoint and env subtracted, letting you change ports, env vars, mounts or resources in seconds.
Browse any running container's filesystem right in the app: navigate folders, download files to your Mac, upload or delete. All over the native API, no docker cp incantations.
Open a docker-compose.yml and Davit shows exactly what it will create: services in dependency order, volumes, networks, the equivalent CLI command per service, and honest warnings for anything unsupported. Then it starts the whole stack in one click.
Pick a context folder, set a tag, hit Build. Davit drives Apple's BuildKit builder directly, starting it if needed, and the image lands in your library, ready to run.
Pull with live progress, run from any image, tag, prune. Create sized volumes and custom subnets. See what's in use before you delete it.
Sign in to Docker Hub, ghcr.io, quay.io or any registry to pull private images. Credentials are verified on the spot and stored in your login keychain, shared with the container CLI, so both see them.
Default CPU/memory for new containers, registry, DNS, builder resources; edited in the app, validated by the platform's own config loader, saved as clean TOML overrides.
No container platform installed? Davit downloads Apple's signed installer, verifies it, and sets everything up in your user Library; no administrator rights needed. It can add the container CLI to your shell, too.
Built entirely in SwiftUI. Menu bar quick actions, a Dock icon only when you want one, and live charts that don't spin up a browser to render.
From a fresh install to a running container you can open in your browser.
Grab it from Releases or brew install wouterdebie/tap/davit. On first launch, if Apple's container platform isn't installed, Davit sets it up for you; no admin password needed.
Click Images → Pull Image and enter a small image that shows something in the browser:
nginxdemos/helloHit Run on the image (or Containers → Run Container). Set a port mapping (host 8088 → container 80) and run.
From the container's Ports row, click Open in Browser (or visit localhost:8088). You'll see a page served from inside the container, showing its own hostname and address.
Open the container to watch live CPU, memory and disk, stream logs, browse and download its files, drop into a terminal, or Edit & Recreate to change ports, env or resources.
Honest answer: it depends on how you use Docker. Davit is a UI for Apple's container platform, not a Docker daemon; there is no docker socket and no docker CLI/API compatibility. If your workflow is "docker run, a compose file, the occasional build", Davit covers it today: pull and run with ports/env/mounts/limits, import a docker-compose.yml, build from a Dockerfile, sign in to private registries, browse files, stream logs. If your workflow is scripted against the docker API (testcontainers, tools that expect /var/run/docker.sock, CI scripts shelling out to docker), it can't replace that yet. Your images all work either way; OCI is OCI.
Yes. Build them right in the app (Images → Build Image, since 0.1.8), or with the platform's container build; both land in the same image store Davit shows. Images built with Docker live in Docker's separate store; move one over with docker save and container image load.
The honest answer is architectural: there's no always-on multi-gigabyte Linux VM. Docker Desktop keeps one big VM running whether or not you have containers; Apple's platform instead boots a separate lightweight VM per container, sized to that container, and tears it down when the container stops. With nothing running, the platform's background services idle at roughly 25 MB. Davit itself is a native SwiftUI app (no Electron); its footprint is mostly shared macOS framework memory. So the more containers you're not running, the less it costs you.
Honestly: if OrbStack already works for you, you won't switch for speed; it's excellent, and its shared-VM design is very fast. The engines differ, though. OrbStack is a commercial app with its own Docker-compatible virtualization layer; Davit is a free, open-source UI on Apple's own container platform, which boots a separate lightweight VM per container in well under a second and tears it down when the container stops. What you'd notice in practice: nothing resident when nothing is running, per-container IPs on a bridged network, stronger isolation between containers, and no license or account. What OrbStack still does better: drop-in docker CLI/API compatibility and broader tooling support. Both run standard OCI images.
Yes. The platform has local DNS domains built in: run sudo container system dns create test once (or use your own domain name), set it as the default domain under Settings → Platform → DNS, and a container named web answers at web.test from your Mac. Every container also gets its own IP (shown in its Network section), so direct access always works. Alternatively, running Avahi inside the guest broadcasts a .local mDNS alias, since containers sit on a bridged network with their own addresses.
Yes, with a supported subset. Containers → ⋯ → Import Compose File parses the file and previews the plan: services in depends_on order, named volumes, networks, and the equivalent container run command per service. Then it creates and starts everything in one click. Supported: image, ports, environment, volumes (named & bind), networks, resource limits, command, user, working_dir. Anything the importer can't honor (e.g. restart:, healthcheck:, build:) is listed as a warning up front rather than silently dropped. Apple's platform has no native compose, so Davit orchestrates the stack itself.
Yes: Images → Build Image. Davit talks to Apple's BuildKit-based builder directly (and starts it for you if it isn't running): pick the context folder and Dockerfile, set a tag and build args, and the built image lands in your library. One current platform limit worth knowing: Dockerfiles over 16 KiB are rejected (an upstream apple/container bug), and build contexts can't live under /tmp.
Yes. Sign in under Settings → Registries; Docker Hub, ghcr.io, quay.io or any OCI registry. Credentials are verified against the registry before being saved to your login keychain, and they're shared with the container CLI, so a login in Davit works for CLI pulls too (and vice-versa). For Docker Hub, use an access token rather than your password. Registries that use Docker credential helpers (Google Artifact Registry via gcloud, ECR, and friends) work too: if ~/.docker/config.json names a helper for the registry, Davit invokes it right before each pull, so short-lived tokens are always fresh.
Yes. Every release is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without Gatekeeper warnings. It's open source (MIT); you can read or build it yourself. It talks only to your local container daemon and to GitHub for update checks.
container CLI installed?No. Davit talks to the platform directly over XPC. If the platform isn't present, Davit can download and install Apple's signed package for you on first launch; no admin password required. It can optionally add the container CLI to your shell from Settings if you want it.