Docker Desktop is no longer free for business users

Starting August 31, 2021, Docker will begin to force corporate customers to sign up for a paid plan to use its popular desktop applications as part of the container company's major subscription pricing adjustments.

Existing professional Docker Desktop customers who work for companies with more than 250 employees or $10 million in revenue must register for a paid subscription by January 31, 2022 to continue using the application. It will continue to be free for small businesses, personal use, education, and "non-commercial open source projects," which the company says account for about half of its current user base.

This move is part of a wide-ranging change in Docker's license terms, as CEO Scott Johnston continues to plan a turnaround for the once-hot thermal container startup, which sold its enterprise business to Mirantis in 2019. Under Johnston’s leadership, the rest of the company has shifted to focus on providing services to developers who build containerized applications, mainly through the Docker Engine container runtime, Hub image repository, and desktop applications. It has been installed on 3.3 million computers.

The new pricing plans are Personal, Pro, Team and Business, which replace the old plans of Free, Pro, Team and Large. The personal plan is still free, while the professional plan has a personal cost of $5 per month, and the team plan has a cost of $7 per user per month. The starting price of the new business plan is $21 per user per month.

The Pro and Team plans will remain roughly the same, while large enterprise users (everything except the name is an enterprise plan) will require a paid subscription to get additional features such as registration restrictions, single sign-on, and security software supply chain management

Docker Personal customers will continue to have free access to Desktop, as well as Docker CLI, Docker Compose, Docker Engine, Docker Hub and Docker official images.

"Docker Desktop's updated license terms reflect our need to sustainably expand our business and enable us to continue to provide value for all Docker subscriptions," Johnston wrote in a blog post detailing these changes.

There are no changes to the Docker engine runtime, upstream open source Docker or Moby projects