Hi,
I’m considering deployment of my Dockerized app to a Windows Server running host.
I started researching the licensing and it’s really confusing. Found several older sources covering installation of Docker EE on Windows Server 2016+.
However when I google Docker EE and click on any of the docker.com links, I get redirected to a home page.
So, obviously Docker EE is gone, but there is not a single word explaining why and what happened and what to do. Just a redirection to a home page.
Found this cached Docker docs where Get Docker section seems to has been more extensively covering the options:
It seems all the documentation on docker.com is implicitly referring to Docker Desktop (which is paid for commercial use). It feels almost like there are no other editions left?
What happened to Docker EE?
What happened to Docker CE?
What Docker type am I running on my Linux host (obviously not Docker Desktop)?
Is there any option left to run dockerized apps on Windows hosts without using Docker Desktop (i.e. avoiding extra licensing fee, but also don’t need a desktop app)
It is indeed confusiing. If I remember correctly, there was a link to “Docker CE” under the download button. Now I can’t find that either. There is a link at the bottom of docker.com: Desktop vs Docker Engine, but this is outdated since it doesn’t mention Docker Desktop for Linux.
You can use Docker CE for free. It is often referred to as Docker Engine:
Thank you for pointing out the confusing references.
Most likely Docker CE but that can be installed from multiple sources. Always use the official guide that I linked above.
It depends on what type of containers you want to run. In case of Linux containers you can create a Virtual Machine that runs Docker CE. In case of Windows containers you can follow the Microsoft documentation
Great, thank you for explaining.
Since the scenario in question is to run Linux container on Windows, I guess a VM with Docker CE is a way to go… or a Docker Desktop.
