So it seems like if you are not concerned about docker-machine create then you can use Docker CE without VirtualBox installed. But if you ask me, it seems that at some point you might get snagged while playing around with containers, so the best bet is to keep VirtualBox installed.
My personal best advice is if you don’t want VirtualBox around, just ditch it for now and do as you wish with Docker CE. And if/when you hit some command wall—such as the docker-machine create item mentioned above—then just install VirtualBox and accept that as the “price of admission” for using Docker on macOS.
Docker is an application virtualisation tool. VirtualBox is a Virtual Machine tool.
VB simulates an entire hardware environment whereas Docker isolates the reads/writes of the enclosed application from the rest of the OS.
The overheads of a whole VM can be considerable whereas Docker apps don't need to replicate all of the OS so, in theory, you may be able to get more out of your host environment.
On the other hand, it can be very tricky to get applications to play nicely together with Docker due to the application isolation.
Also, Docker does not yet run on Windows (that is due soon though) so there are platform limitations too.
Best Answer
Good question. Seems confusing based on the documentation which states:
But then states:
So it seems like if you are not concerned about
docker-machine create
then you can use Docker CE without VirtualBox installed. But if you ask me, it seems that at some point you might get snagged while playing around with containers, so the best bet is to keep VirtualBox installed.My personal best advice is if you don’t want VirtualBox around, just ditch it for now and do as you wish with Docker CE. And if/when you hit some command wall—such as the
docker-machine create
item mentioned above—then just install VirtualBox and accept that as the “price of admission” for using Docker on macOS.