Container Desktop vs Tilt

Container Desktop is a free, open-source desktop interface for Podman, Docker, and Apple Container, available on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It connects to local environments, SSH, and WSL. Users can inspect container logs, environment variables, mounts, ports, and live stats, then start, stop, or restart containers. Exposed services can be opened in a browser.

For image work, the app includes a Containerfile editor with live linting, build options, a build timeline, and an image layer inspector. It also provides tools for image security, pods, networks, secrets, and volumes. A built-in assistant can inspect and operate containers; it requests approval before actions that change state. The assistant works with LM Studio and llama.cpp locally, or OpenRouter and Anthropic in the cloud. The project is licensed under MIT. Its privacy policy says the app itself performs no telemetry and collects, stores, or transmits no data, while noting that third-party registries such as docker.io and quay.io have their own privacy practices. Linux and Windows downloads list x86_64 and arm64 options.

Tilt is a free, open-source development environment for teams building microservice applications that deploy to Kubernetes. It watches files, builds container images and updates the development environment when code changes. Its live_update feature deploys changes to running containers in seconds, including compiled-language code or dependency changes. Tilt can start the application and automate rebuilds, with logs, broken builds and runtime errors in its feedback loop. Its UI collects service logs and shows the development environment's state.

Teams configure services and workflows with Tiltfiles using Kubernetes YAML and Docker images; documentation also describes integrating Bazel builds. Tilt has an extension system for sharing Tiltfile functionality, such as team scripts and custom buttons, and provides editor support for VS Code, selected JetBrains IDEs and other editors through an embedded language server. It runs on macOS, Linux and Windows. The standard setup requires Docker, kubectl and a local Kubernetes cluster, though workflows can also use options such as Helm, Podman or local processes. Tilt is maintained as open source by Docker, Inc. under the Apache-2.0 license and costs nothing.