Compare to docker-compose

[elgalu]

Hi, could someone summarize what's the difference between this project and docker-compose ? perhaps a short comparing note in the README can help.

Is it a drop in replacement?
Does it compensate it?

[michaelsauter]

Crane was written originally end of 2013, slightly before Fig appeared. Then, Fig was "accquired" by Docker and turned into docker-compose. Both tools do the same thing more or less now, in the beginning the difference was much bigger (docker-compose's configuration v2 looks a lot like Crane's).

Crane is not a drop-in replacement as the configuration format differs - though not very much. The biggest differences to my knowledge are:

• Docker-Compose has support for overriding configuration (Crane also supports this now)
• Crane has the concept of groups
• Semantics of run/start etc. are slightly different
• Crane supports excluding containers/groups or limiting to containers/groups
• Crane has support for hooking into container lifecycle (e.g. executing sth. on start/stop)
• Crane has nice support for setting image tag, container prefixes etc. via environment
• And finally, very fresh, Crane integrates Unison with Docker for Mac (making it usable for bigger projects speed-wise)

Note these are the things from the top of my head, and that I'm probably biased ;)

[elgalu]

:) thanks!

[michaelsauter]

A while ago, Crane has learned to read docker-compose's v3 file format. With some behaviour changes in Crane 3.3.0 (support for multiple networks + default network), it should be a drop-in for most use cases. There also is a dedicated list of compatibility notes at https://www.craneup.tech/docs/compatibility.