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

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