Is Docker Desktop free? What it actually costs in 2026

What the free tier actually includes

• —Free for personal use, education, non-commercial open source projects and small businesses
• —A small business means fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million annual revenue — both conditions, not either
• —Government entities and professional use in larger organisations need a paid subscription
• —1 user, 1 private Docker Hub repo, 1 Scout-enabled repo
• —100 Docker Hub pulls per hour

Where the wall is

The wall is your employer's headcount, and you cannot engineer around it. Nothing in the product stops working when your company grows past 250 people; the licence simply stops applying, and the exposure is commercial rather than technical. That is why this question gets searched by people who are not the buyer — a developer trying to find out whether they are about to put their employer out of compliance.

After that: Pro is $11 per user per month ($9 billed annually) and still caps at a single user. Team is $16 ($15 annual) for up to 100 users, Business $24 either way with no user cap. For an organisation past the threshold the real number is per developer, every month, forever — which is what makes the alternatives worth a migration rather than merely interesting.

Can you self-host Docker Desktop? Yes

The engine underneath is open source and always was. Docker Engine, containerd and the CLI carry no such restriction — the licence applies to Docker Desktop, the GUI application. On Linux you never needed Desktop at all. On macOS and Windows the honest replacements are Colima, Rancher Desktop, Podman Desktop and OrbStack, all of which run the same containers.

Questions people ask

Is Docker Desktop free for commercial use?

Only for a small business. Docker’s licence makes Desktop free for “Small businesses (fewer than 250 employees AND less than $10 million in annual revenue)” — both conditions — and requires a paid subscription for “Professional use in larger organizations”. Nothing in the app stops working past the threshold; the licence simply stops covering you.

Is Docker free for personal use?

Yes. Personal use is on Docker’s own list of free uses, alongside education and non-commercial open source projects, and the $0 Personal plan includes Docker Desktop, Docker Engine with Kubernetes, Docker Hub, Docker Scout and Docker Debug for one user, with 100 Docker Hub pulls an hour.

Can government agencies use Docker Desktop for free?

No. Docker’s licence terms list “Government entities” among the uses that require a paid subscription, separately from the small-business exemption. A government team on macOS or Windows either pays per developer or runs one of the alternatives below, which use the same containers.

Is Docker Engine free?

The licence that charges larger companies covers Docker Desktop, the desktop application. Docker says the licensing and distribution terms of its open-source projects, “such as Docker Engine, aren’t changing” — the engine, containerd and the CLI are open source, and on Linux you can run containers without Desktop at all.

What it actually takes to run one yourself

Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.

What you are locked into

Lock-in here is unusually low, which is good news for anyone comparing options. Containers are built to the open OCI standard, images live in registries you can point anywhere (Docker Hub, GitHub, a private registry), Dockerfiles and Compose files are plain text you own, and the Docker CLI is a well-documented interface that several alternatives replicate. The practical dependency is on Docker Desktop's specific GUI, its managed VM, and its update channel — not on your images or workflows, which move to another engine with little or no change.

If you would rather not pay: Podman + Podman Desktop