Here is the output from Docker stats with a minikube cluster started: But it uses considerably fewer system resources. Minikube isn't suitable for production environments, and it lacks many features when compared to a "full" Kubernetes cluster. If you're running a single-node Kubernetes cluster on your Mac, you have two choices: the Kubernetes implementation that Docker includes with Desktop, or minikube. You need to enable the new virtualization framework to use it. Like the virtualization, check the box and click the button to restart Docker to use this. VirtioFS performs much better than the default file sharing mechanism and enabling it may help you with Docker's biggest performance problem on macOS. You'll need to restart all your containers, too. The new framework may perform better, but Docker doesn't provide official support for it yet. To enable the new framework, check the box next to it and click the button to restart Docker. Apple introduced a new virtualization framework with Big Sur, but Docker uses the amework by default. The first deals with the virtual machine Docker uses. Start Docker Desktop and select the bug icon on the top right. Fortunately, Docker's developers anticipated this and gave you an easy to reset your settings. While not likely, it's possible that you could tweak a memory or CPU setting and your containers won't start. Remote development (running environments on a remote machine)īefore we start, let's discuss what you can do if you change settings and things go badly.Switching to Minikube (instead of a single-node Kubernetes cluster).Experimental features (new virtualization framework and VirtioFS).Measuring and adjusting system resources.
#Memory allocated to docker on mac how to
How to get out of trouble (resetting changes that made performance worse).There are a few ways you can make Docker run better on your Mac, and most of them are by simply changing a few settings. We'll look at them below as we cover general ways to improve Docker performance. This is evidenced by recent releases of Docker Desktop that have experimental features attempting to address performance on macOS. These performance issues are something that Docker is very aware of. For many compute and network operations, performance between macOS and Linux is still comparable, and performance gains delivered by Apple Silicon may help bridge the performance gap over time. This doesn't mean that Docker on macOS is always slower than on Linux. Accessing large files, or large numbers of files, via a virtual machine in macOS will always perform worse than native access. One of the most noticeable differences is with shared filesystems.
#Memory allocated to docker on mac mac
Is Docker on Mac Slow?īecause Docker runs in a virtual machine on macOS, container operations are slower than they would be on Linux. That said, in many instances, you might need more CPU and memory than expected or on a Linux machine. You can fire up a MySQL database, Nginx web server, or InfluxDB in seconds with Docker - just as easily as you can on a Linux development system. It's not the right choice for performance testing, and you're going to hit real limits on the size and number of containers you can run depending on CPU and memory-just like you would on any local development machine.īut, running containers instead of native applications on a macOS computer is often a better option than using native installers or even Homebrew. MacOS is still a good choice for development, and you can get a lot done running containers on a Mac. This affects performance -and this is exacerbated by certain tools or languages (like PHP projects that have heavy I/O consumption).ĭoes that make macOS a bad choice for running Docker? No. But macOS doesn't have a Linux kernel, so Docker has to run in a Linux virtual machine. Docker uses the Linux kernel to manage resources between containers, so your Docker applications run on the Linux operating systems. Let's talk about why that is and what you can do to improve it.ĭocker runs differently on macOS than Linux. Docker – which is an important tool for testing and production environments.īut Docker's performance on Mac has a poor reputation. More importantly, Macs support the most popular development tools like VS Code, the JetBrains toolbox, and. And many developers appreciate the user experience that Mac and Apple have become famous for. They let developers open a shell and find an environment that looks a lot like Linux. They support Java, Python, Ruby, and many other commonly used development languages. Macs are excellent development platforms.