Lately it’s been a busy time for Docker, after disclosing the availability of its orchestration tools and the acquisition of SocketPlane, the open-source project that automates the deployment of applications inside software containers announced to have acquired Kitematic, an open source project that allows the automatic installation and set up process of Docker, providing an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) for running Docker containers on the Mac.
Kitematic started from the idea of three engineering students, Jeff Morgan, Michael Chiang and Sean Li of the University of Waterloo, the three founders of the project created Kitematic, after noticing the need of better tools for developers and planned its own which automatically sets up everything to run Docker on Mac and provides a GUI to run and manage Docker containers.
The initial Kitematic feature set includes:
- One-click installer for Docker on a Mac
- Intuitive GUI
- Ability to search and pull all public images in Docker Hub
- Images can be downloaded and run as containers
- Simple one-click commands
- Create and run container
- Run, restart and access container
- Access to dev’s code to modify container
- Advanced automation features include:
- Mapping ports
- Mounting drive volumes
- Modifying environment variables
- Getting log information
Solomon Hykes, chief architect of the Docker Project and founder and CTO of Docker, Inc. said:
We are thrilled to be bringing the Kitematic team on board to help expand our efforts in creating tooling that enriches the developer experience, Kitematic reflects our original vision for Docker which was to make a great tooling for developers, who in turn would then use it to make great tools. Adding talented people like the Kitematic team to Docker is how we ensure that we keep focused on tackling new challenges for developers as they arise. We are also proud to announce that the Kitematic tool remains open source and free.