As you might have seen, Stack Overflow recently unveiled the 2024 Developer Survey results. This always serves for me as a time to reflect on what Docker has accomplished each year in between. Since our inclusion in the survey five years ago, the Stack Overflow community has consistently ranked Docker highly. We were humbled to see Docker recognized as the most-used and most-desired developer tool for the second consecutive year. In addition, this year the community has elevated Docker to be the most-admired (78%). Moreover, Docker is the most-used tool (in the “other tools” category) by professional developers, with 59% using it in their work. This is the direct result of the value developers get by using Docker: a great developer experience, a step-function improvement in productivity, the industry’s largest repository of trusted content, and a community to support getting things done. 

Your votes and support mean the world to us, and we couldn’t have achieved this without the Docker and Stack Overflow developer communities! Your feedback and enthusiasm drive us to keep improving and innovating.

When Stack Overflow released the results of last year’s 2023 Developer Survey and we learned that Stack Overflow’s community ranked Docker as the #1 most-desired and #1 most-used developer tool, I said that it means we can’t slow down and need to go even faster in our effort to serve developers. Since the 2023 survey, we have continued listening to your needs and have delivered many improvements in speed, security, collaboration, content, and functionality.  

The 2024 survey results highlight a few key themes that resonate deeply with Docker’s mission and feedback we’re hearing directly from our community: Developers want tools that enhance productivity, simplify workflows, and help them with the latest technological advancements — and yes, that includes AI. 

Let’s look at a few key innovations and updates from the past year that reflect how we’re addressing your feedback and the evolving landscape. 

What’s new

We released Docker Scout for actionable insights in the software supply chain, helping developers address security and policy issues at the time of writing code rather than wait for CI results or, much worse, discover issues when an app is in production. We also provide a free Docker Scout Team subscription to all Docker-Sponsored Open Source (DSOS) participants to help ensure more of the content on Docker Hub is secure from the start. Then, we added Docker Scout Health Scores for security grading containers in your Docker Hub repos. We announced Docker Build Cloud to speed up build times. We also welcomed AtomicJar, maker of Testcontainers, to the Docker family.

Docker continues to innovate in bringing the power of the cloud to local development. Specifically, through Docker Desktop developers easily benefit from Docker’s cloud services in their inner loops, including Docker Build Cloud, Docker Scout, Testcontainers Cloud, and Docker Hub. The result? More frequent releases of higher quality, more secure applications. 

Speaking of Docker Desktop, we’ve delivered more than a dozen Docker Desktop releases in the past year, each one providing more capabilities to boost developer productivity, including Docker Debug, Docker Build checks, Docker Init, Builds view, private marketplace for Docker Extensions, Compose Watch, Resource Saver mode, and much more.

And we’ve also shipped Betas of many new capabilities, including GitHub Actions builds, Compose File Viewer, a new terminal feature in Docker Desktop, enterprise-grade Volume Backup to cloud providers, Docker Desktop for Windows on Arm, Docker Desktop support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and others.

While rapidly rolling out new features and products, we remain focused on security. In addition to unveiling Docker Scout, our tool designed to enhance the security of the software supply chain, we were happy to announce that we have received our SOC 2 Type 2 attestation and ISO 27001 certification with no exceptions or major non-conformities. 

This past year has been a busy one for open source, and Docker remains committed to actively maintaining projects that are core to the container ecosystem, including Compose, BuildKit, runc, containerd, Moby (Docker Engine), Distribution, and more. As but one example, BuildKit now includes experimental support for Windows containers, expanding its versatility and reach. By investing in these open source projects, Docker and our community together ensure the container ecosystem continues to evolve to better serve developers.

AI/ML advancements 

We know from our community and customers that Docker is already a pivotal part of the AI/ML development ecosystem, and its use in AI/ML is only growing. For example, a year ago there were more than 100 million pulls of AI/ML images in Docker Hub. Since then that number has grown to more than 500 million!

In the past year we’ve also leaned into leveraging AI to help developers innovate faster and smarter. For example, our integration with tools like GitHub Copilot supports rapid onboarding and continuous learning for developers. Additionally, we’ve added an AI-powered assistant to Docker documentation. By leveraging AI-driven assistance, developers can enhance their coding skills, stay updated with the latest trends, and contribute more effectively to their organizations. 

Looking further out, we see AI/ML fundamentally changing how developers work and how applications are built. To explore these quickly evolving spaces together with our community, we are experimenting in public with new techniques and tools in our Docker Labs GenAI series. For example, a recent post explores how to create Dockerfiles with GenAI. 

Stay tuned — we have even more AI ideas percolating!

Guides and manuals

Speaking of documentation, our Docs and DevRel teams, with help from our Docker Captains, have been up-leveling our guides and manuals. Whether you’re brand new to the Docker community or have been with us from the beginning, you’ll find guides that can take you from starting with Docker foundational concepts to language-specific, use-case, and deep-dive tutorials. Do you have ideas to contribute? We want to hear from you!  

Thank you, and stay in touch

Stack Overflow’s 2024 Developer Survey highlights the critical role Docker plays in the developer ecosystem. By continually innovating and addressing the needs of our community and customers, we help developers and businesses achieve their goals. As we look to the future, Docker remains dedicated to empowering every developer and team with the best solutions to navigate and thrive in the ever-evolving software development landscape.

On behalf of everyone here at Team Docker: Thank you for your ongoing support and trust in Docker!

Learn more

• Subscribe to Docker Navigator to stay updated with what’s happening at Docker.
• Read our 2024 State of Application Development Report to see insights from our own survey, which digs into key trends such as the expanding roles of cloud and AI/ML in software development and attitudes toward the shift-left approach to security.
• See our case study collection to learn how our customers are using Docker as a foundational tool in their tech stack.
• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.

Stack Overflow’s annual 2023 Developer Survey engaged more than 90,000 developers to learn about their work, the technologies they use, their likes and dislikes, and much, much more. As a company obsessed with serving developers, we’re honored that Stack Overflow’s community ranked Docker the #1 most-desired and #1 most-used developer tool. Since our inclusion in the survey four years ago, the Stack Overflow community has consistently ranked Docker highly, and we deeply appreciate this ongoing recognition and support.

Giving developers speed, security, and choice

While we’re pleased with this recognition, for us it means we cannot slow down: We need to go even faster in our effort to serve developers. In what ways? Well, our developer community tells us they value speed, security, and choice:

• Speed: Developers want to maximize their time writing code for their app — and minimize set-up and overhead — so they can ship early and often.
• Security: Specifically, non-intrusive, informative, and actionable security. Developers want to catch and fix vulnerabilities right now when coding in their “inner loop,” not 30 minutes later in CI or seven days later in production.
• Choice: Developers want the freedom to explore new technologies and select the right tool for the right job and not be constrained to use lowest-common-denominator technologies in “everything-but-the-kitchen-sink” monolithic tools.

And indeed, these are the “North Stars” that inform our roadmap and prioritize our product development efforts. Recent examples include:

Speed

• Docker Init: Automatically generates Dockerfiles and docker-compose.yml files for Python, Node, and Go apps.
• VirtioFS support: 98% reduction in database import time.
• Docker Compose file watch: Automatically detects and syncs local host code changes with the container.
• vpnkit => gVisor: 5X faster container-to-host networking performance.

Security

• Docker Scout: Automatically detects vulnerabilities and recommends fixes while devs are coding in their “inner loop.”
• Attestations: Docker Build automatically generates SBOMs and SLSA Provenance and attaches them to the image.

Choice

• Docker Extensions: Launched just over a year ago, and since then, partners and community members have created and published to Docker Hub more than 700 Docker Extensions for a wide range of developer tools covering Kubernetes app development, security, observability, and more.
• Docker-Sponsored Open Source Projects: Available 100% for free on Docker Hub, this sponsorship program supports more than 600 open source community projects.
• Multiple architectures: A single docker build command can produce an image that runs on multiple architectures, including x86, ARM, RISC-V, and even IBM mainframes.

What’s next?

While we’re pleased that our efforts have been well-received by our developer community, we’re not slowing down. So many exciting changes in our industry today present us with new opportunities to serve developers.

For example, the lines between the local developer laptop and the cloud are becoming increasingly blurred. This offers opportunities to combine the power of the cloud with the convenience and low latency of local development. Another example is AI/ML. Specifically, LLMs in feedback loops with users offer opportunities to automate more tasks to further reduce the toil on developers.

Watch these spaces — we’re looking forward to sharing more with you soon.

Thank you!

Docker only exists because of our community of developers, Docker Captains and Community Leaders, customers, and partners, and we’re grateful for your on-going support as reflected in this year’s Stack Overflow survey results. On behalf of everyone here at Team Docker: THANK YOU. And we look forward to continuing to build the future together with you.

Learn more

• Get the latest release of Docker Desktop.
• Vote on what’s next! Check out our public roadmap.
• Have questions? The Docker community is here to help.
• New to Docker? Get started.