Davit

About

Davit is a native Mac app for running Linux containers with Apple's own container platform on Apple silicon. Think of it as a friendly dashboard in the spirit of Docker Desktop or OrbStack, but built for the lightweight virtual machine containers Apple ships. It is for developers who want to run databases, services and Compose stacks locally without paying for or installing Docker Desktop. Davit is written entirely in SwiftUI, with no Electron and no web views. It talks to Apple's container daemon directly over XPC, the same path the official command-line tool uses, so it never shells out to the CLI behind your back. It is an open-source project by Wouter de Bie, released in 2026, and it is updated often. It even handles setup: if the container platform is missing, Davit downloads Apple's signed installer, verifies it and installs it in your user Library without administrator rights. Highlights: • Dashboard with service status, disk usage and live CPU across running containers • Container list with live CPU, memory and IP, plus streaming logs and stat charts • One-click terminal into any running container, in Terminal or iTerm • Built-in file browser to download, upload and delete files inside a container • Edit and Recreate, which prefills a new container from an existing one's settings • Compose import that previews services, volumes and networks before starting the stack • Image builds from a Dockerfile using Apple's BuildKit builder • Registry logins stored in your keychain, plus management of images, volumes and networks Davit is completely free, with no subscription, and is open source under the MIT license. It runs on macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon Macs, is signed and notarized, and can also be installed with Homebrew.

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