Top 11 Open-Source Docker Tools You Should Know

Docker is an open‑source container engine that packages applications and their dependencies into portable images runnable on any Linux or Windows host.

spug

GitHub: https://github.com/openspug/spug

Stars: 3.8k | Forks: 769

An operations platform built with Python and Vue. It follows a front‑end/back‑end separation, is distributed as Docker images, and provides host management, task scheduling, deployment, monitoring, and alerting.

ctop

GitHub: https://github.com/bcicen/ctop

Stars: 10.2k | Forks: 388

A top‑like CLI tool that shows real‑time CPU, memory, network, and I/O usage for Docker containers.

drone

GitHub: https://github.com/drone/drone

Stars: 21.3k | Forks: 2.1k

A Go‑based continuous integration platform that runs pipelines inside Docker containers, enabling "pipeline as code" and integration with version‑control systems.

docui

GitHub: https://github.com/skanehira/docui

Stars: 1.8k | Forks: 74

A terminal‑based Docker management tool that provides an interactive UI, allowing container control without memorizing CLI commands.

Installation example:

docker run -it --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock docui/docui

docker‑slim

GitHub: https://github.com/docker-slim/docker-slim

Stars: 8.8k | Forks: 306

A tool that automatically reduces Docker image size. Example usage:

docker-slim build --http-probe your-name/your-app

It can dramatically shrink images such as Node.js base images.

docker_practice

GitHub: https://github.com/yeasy/docker_practice

Stars: 17.1k | Forks: 4.7k

A tutorial repository that guides users from Docker fundamentals to advanced practices, covering image building, container orchestration, and real‑world scenarios.

lazydocker

GitHub: https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazydocker

Stars: 15.5k | Forks: 581

A command‑line UI for Docker that lets users manage containers, images, volumes, and networks interactively, without requiring heavyweight platforms.

dive

GitHub: https://github.com/wagoodman/dive

Stars: 20.7k | Forks: 749

A CLI tool for exploring each layer of a Docker image’s filesystem and identifying opportunities to reduce image size.

Run with:

dive <image-name>

gochat

GitHub: https://github.com/LockGit/gochat

Stars: 663 | Forks: 108

A lightweight instant‑messaging system written in pure Go. It uses RPC for inter‑service communication, Redis for message storage and delivery, and etcd for service discovery. The repository provides a Docker image for quick deployment.

docker‑dashboard

GitHub: https://github.com/pipiliang/docker-dashboard

Stars: 205 | Forks: 22

A console‑based Docker dashboard written in Node.js, with simple and readable code, suitable as a learning project.

diving

GitHub: https://github.com/vicanso/diving

Stars: 136 | Forks: 12

An UI wrapper around dive that visualizes image‑layer changes (additions, modifications, deletions) and per‑layer data sizes, making image inspection and optimization easier.