Docker Pricing 2026: Is Docker Desktop Free for Your Team?

Docker Desktop is free for companies with fewer than 250 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue, and for personal use, education and non-commercial open source. Everyone else needs a paid seat: Pro at $9, Team at $15 or Business at $24 per user per month on annual billing, or $11 and $16 a month for Pro and Team billed monthly.

Prices were read on 19 October 2026 on Docker's pricing page, and the license rule on Docker's Docker Desktop license agreement page. Our read: most startups owe Docker nothing, but the threshold is an AND rule, so a 40-person company with $12 million in revenue has to pay for every developer who runs Desktop.

Toolradar data: 35 of the 38 container orchestration tools on Toolradar, the software directory we run, have a free plan, and Docker is listed as an alternative to 17 other tools, fourth in that category, as of October 2026. Its record is Docker on Toolradar, where visitors most often compare it with Podman.

Who has to pay for Docker Desktop?

The Docker Subscription Service Agreement makes Docker Desktop free for four groups:

• Small businesses with fewer than 250 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue. Both conditions must hold.
• Personal use, such as side projects and learning.
• Education.
• Non-commercial open source projects.

A paid subscription is required for professional use in larger organizations, for government entities, and for commercial use beyond those limits. The government line catches teams by surprise: a 30-person city IT department does not qualify for the small-business exemption, whatever its size.

The rule applies to the organization, not the team. A 12-person platform team inside a 2,000-employee company needs paid seats for all 12, because the employee count is the company's.

What the rule does not cover is Docker Engine. Docker's license page notes that the licensing of the open source Docker and Moby projects, Docker Engine included, is not changing, so Linux servers and CI runners that use Docker Engine without Desktop are outside the subscription question. The paid seat is for developers running the Desktop app on their machines.

What does each paid Docker plan include?

All four plans ship the same Docker Desktop core: Docker Engine, the CLI, Compose, Kubernetes, extensions and volume exports. The paid tiers differ in Docker Hub limits, admin controls and support, not in what a developer can build locally.

Pro is for one professional. It removes Docker Hub's pull limit (Personal is capped at 100 pulls an hour per user), unlocks unlimited private repositories against one on Personal, adds Synchronized File Shares, Docker Scout health scores on 2 repositories and 100 Testcontainers Cloud minutes a month. Pro covers a single user, so it is not a team plan.

Team is the plan for a group of up to 100 users. It adds bulk user management, Docker Hub role-based access control, audit logs, unlimited Scout-enabled repositories, 10 organization access tokens, one Docker Hub organization and 500 Testcontainers Cloud minutes per subscription, with 2-business-day support available 24x5.

Business removes the user cap and adds the enterprise controls: single sign-on, SCIM provisioning, Hardened Docker Desktop, Enhanced Container Isolation, Registry and Image Access Management, settings management, an MSI installer, VDI support and the Desktop Insights dashboard. It includes 1,500 Testcontainers Cloud minutes and 100 organization access tokens, can be bought by invoice, and is the only plan that supports Desktop versions up to 6 months older than the latest.

A company above 100 developers has only one option: Business. Team's 100-user ceiling is the line that pushes large engineering orgs to $24 a seat, whether or not they need SSO.

How much does Docker cost for a development team?

Seats are the whole bill, plus any extra Testcontainers Cloud minutes. Three company sizes that fall outside the free tier, from the list prices:

For a team of 10 to 100, Team on annual billing is the cheapest compliant option, and monthly billing costs only about 7% more, which makes it a reasonable choice for a company unsure of its headcount next year. Business costs 60% more per seat than Team on annual billing, a premium that is worth paying when SSO and SCIM are a security requirement and hard to justify when they are not.

Testcontainers Cloud is the one usage line. Extra runtime minutes cost $3 per 100 when bought in advance and $4 per 100 on demand, on top of the plan's monthly allowance. A team running integration tests in the cloud for many hours a month should budget for it separately.

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Is Docker Pro worth it for a solo developer?

A freelancer or solo developer under the thresholds can use Docker Personal for free, and most do. Pro at $9 a month on annual billing is worth it for a solo developer only if Docker Hub's 100-pulls-an-hour cap or the single private repository is slowing real work.

The pull cap bites most in CI. A pipeline that pulls several base images per job and runs many jobs an hour can hit 100 pulls quickly when all of it runs under one personal login, and an unexpected rate-limit error mid-deploy costs more time than the subscription. If your CI already pulls through a registry mirror or a cloud provider's registry, Personal is usually enough.

How does Docker Desktop compare with the free and cheaper alternatives?

The alternatives remove the Desktop license question, but none of them includes Docker Hub's private repositories, Scout or the admin controls a Team or Business plan adds.

OrbStack's own pricing page lists Pro at $8 per user per month for business and commercial use, with a free tier for personal, non-commercial use. Rancher Desktop and Podman Desktop describe themselves as open source projects. The Toolradar records for OrbStack, Rancher Desktop and Podman Desktop list their alternatives.

The switching cost is the real price. A team on Business for SSO and image access controls would give those up, and every developer has to rebuild a local setup that already works, which is time the license saving has to repay. Our best Docker Desktop alternatives guide covers the trade-offs tool by tool.

Which Docker plan should you buy?

Under 250 employees and $10 million in revenue, use Docker Personal and pay nothing. Re-check both numbers each year, because crossing either one makes every Desktop seat billable.

Above the thresholds, buy Team on annual billing for up to 100 developers, and Business when you need SSO, SCIM, Enhanced Container Isolation or more than 100 seats. Buy Pro only for a single professional who needs unlimited pulls and private repositories but no team management.

Containers are one line of a larger platform bill. Our CI/CD pricing compared and GitHub Actions pricing pages cover the pipeline side, best CI/CD tools ranks the runners, best Kubernetes tools covers what comes after Compose, and best self-hosting tools covers running your own stack. For where the containers end up, see best VPS hosting for developers, cloud free tiers compared and best dev tools for startups.

Frequently asked questions

Is Docker Desktop free for commercial use?

Yes, for small businesses with fewer than 250 employees and less than $10 million in annual revenue. Larger organizations and government entities need a paid Pro, Team or Business subscription for professional use of Docker Desktop.

How much does Docker Desktop cost per user?

Docker Pro costs $9 per user a month on annual billing or $11 monthly, Team costs $15 annually or $16 monthly, and Business costs $24 per user a month on annual billing only. Personal is free.

What is the difference between Docker Team and Business?

Team allows up to 100 users and adds role-based access, audit logs and bulk user management. Business has no user cap and adds SSO, SCIM provisioning, Hardened Docker Desktop, Enhanced Container Isolation and image and registry access management.

Do I need a Docker subscription for Docker Engine on Linux servers?

The subscription terms cover Docker Desktop. Docker's license page says the licensing of the open source Docker and Moby projects, including Docker Engine, is not changing, so servers running Docker Engine without Desktop are outside the Desktop subscription rule.

How much does Docker cost for a team of 40 developers?

On Team with annual billing, 40 developers cost $7,200 a year. Monthly billing for the same team costs $7,680 over 12 months, and Business on annual billing costs $11,520 a year.

Is there a free alternative to Docker Desktop?

Yes. Rancher Desktop and Podman Desktop are free, open source desktop apps for containers and Kubernetes. OrbStack is free for personal use and charges $8 per user a month for commercial use.

How we priced this

Every Docker price, limit and feature on this page comes from Docker's pricing page, and the license thresholds from Docker's Docker Desktop license agreement page, both read on 19 October 2026. OrbStack's price comes from OrbStack's pricing page, and the Rancher Desktop and Podman Desktop descriptions from their project sites, read the same day. Team bills are our arithmetic on list prices, before tax. The Toolradar figures come from Docker's Toolradar record, October 2026. This page is not legal advice on your license position; read the Docker Subscription Service Agreement before you decide.

Cite this: Devshot, "Docker Pricing 2026: Is Docker Desktop Free for Your Team?", November 2026.

The daily Devshot brief flags tool pricing and license changes before they reach your invoice. Subscribe at devshot.co.

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