Docker Inc has released its first update of 2023 for the Docker Desktop product - version 4.16. The most significant improvement in this release is to bring Docker Extensions to general availability, and the release also offers several performance improvements.
First announced back in May 2022, Docker Extensions provides a mechanism for adding functionality to and extending the capabilities of Docker Desktop, with an SDK also available for developing extensions. Docker Extensions launched with several launch partners, including many providing deeper integration with Kubernetes providers such as VMware Tanzu and OpenShift, and debugging tools such as Telepresence. Also represented are a number of extensions to work with securing the software supply chain, such as Snyk, Anchore, Trivy, and JFrog Xray. Since the launch of the Extensions Marketplace with an initial 15 launch extensions, this has now more than doubled, with 34 extensions now available. Extensions are also improved since the beta launch, with better discoverability both within the Extensions Marketplace and also in Docker Hub, and building and sharing extensions is now made simpler.
Other improvements come with Docker Desktop 4.16, particularly in the areas of improved performance and search. Vulnerability analysis can now be performed up to four times faster than before, particularly with large images (over 5Gb in size). Also provided are some fixes for the new VirtioFS functionality, which became generally available in the macOS version of Docker Desktop 4.15 - adding resilience to that release's substantial performance improvements on MacOS 12.5 and above.
Search is embellished with the quick search functionality trialed in Docker Desktop 4.15, now generally available. Quick search allows searching for containers, images, and Docker compose applications from a single dialog launched from a keyboard shortcut, searching locally on the Docker Hub and also from any private registries from the same interface, with results aggregated together for simplicity. Users can then further filter down through these images to find what's needed. Docker Desktop allows you to perform quick actions like starting, stopping, deleting, viewing logs, and interacting with containers and images right from the search.
The release notes describe further changes. Many dependencies for Docker Desktop are also upgraded in this release, notably with Docker Compose now at version 2.15.1, Containerd at 1.6.14, and the Docker Engine upgraded to v20.10.22. Several bug fixes have also been included.
Docker Desktop 4.16 is available now. Docker Desktop is free for small businesses but requires a paid subscription for larger organizations.