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Container Tools for Visual Studio Code vs Podman Desktop: catalog facts
Container Tools for Visual Studio Code	Podman Desktop
Free The repository is licensed under MIT.	Free Free and open source under the Apache 2.0 licence, with no company size restriction.
Windows, macOS, Linux	Windows, macOS, Linux
Builds, manages and deploys containerized applications from VS Code Includes a Docker Extension Pack for migration from the former Docker extension	No licence fee regardless of company size Installs and updates Podman itself, so there is one thing to manage
Requires Visual Studio Code	Electron, so it is heavy for a dashboard Podman's rootless model behaves differently from Docker in ways that surprise people
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: Apache-2.0
Not stated if an account is needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 8, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.