Show HN: Davit, a Apple Containers UI

xinit 263 points 57 comments July 07, 2026
davit.app · View on Hacker News

Mostly vibe-coded Apple Containers front-end that I'd like to use myself. But if others want to use it, here's the source code.

Discussion Highlights (19 comments)

bbg2401

Other recent vibe-coded projects providing similar interfaces: - https://github.com/tdeverx/contained-app - https://github.com/tofa84/berth

simonw

This looks like a really solid app. I like that it's 17 MB and uses the ContainerAPIClient library directly. 28 commits in 3 days, 5,015 lines of Swift, every commit "Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5". Also neat that it's signed/notarized. I installed it and it downloaded the necessary container platform stuff on first launch. Suggestion: add a getting started tutorial to the site which suggests an image to try out and has screenshots (or a silent video) showing you how to get that image up and running and what you can do with it. The create image dialog suggests "nginx:latest" but that's not a great starting demo.

oulipo2

How does it compare to something like OrbStack?

mrbnprck

Looks great, does it also come with a menubar integration?

nvahalik

I really want to use this but am stuck (right now) having to use Caddy's docker tags integration for name resolution.

nf-x

Looks neat, need to give it a spin

ballislife30

Docker desktop is a memory hog. What's the memory usage of Davit?

neodymiumphish

contained-app includes a Files feature to allow in-container filesystem browsing. Is there any plan to implement this in Davit as well? Looks like great work, will try it soon!

internet2000

Really nice. Worked perfectly downloading the runtime and running nginx:latest. It's getting to the point that scrolling down on Github and seeing Claude as a contributor is a signal the app will be good (Native feeling, no Electron, etc)

david_p

I will give this a try! Docker desktop on mac does not work well (uses lots of resources) and my current alternative is OrbStack (very slick, uses far less resources, but freemium).

MoonWalk

I don't know a lot about containers. Would containers created for/with this also work in Docker? Good name for this app, BTW.

lelandfe

Unrelated. I noticed that the settings window (Cmd-,) text inputs all type from the right instead of the left like older macOS inputs (or web inputs[0]) Is that a thing macOS is moving to? I'm sure I've seen Apple use these too. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Reference/...

dllrr

I've been a fan of Orbstack for make 2 years or so. Worth the cost for me because it's so well integrated and fast and docker command compatible. I'll give this a try though.

ozarkerD

Man I wish Apple would add docker api compatibility to Apple containers

3836293648

> Tiny. A single ~17 MB app Oh goodness what have we come to? I know we're comparing to electron monstrosities, but still

Groxx

Kinda interestingly: it zips to 17MB, but the binary looks to be 56MB (davit.app/contents/macos/davit). That seems like a surprising amount of compression for a binary - embedded assets maybe? Possibly this is normal for mac apps though?

armanj

can someone tldr me why choose apple container (and its ui) over docker (and orbstack)

siquick

Very nice - would love to see the ability to open a Dockerfile directly in the UI to build/run it.

piosin

Any hosting requirements?

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