Today, we are excited to announce that Docker for Mac and Docker for Windows are graduating from beta and are now stable and ready for production.

We want to give a big thank-you to the tens of thousands of developers and system administrators who helped us find bugs and came up with ideas for tweaks and improvements.

Our goal with Docker for Mac and Windows is simple – create the easiest way to use Docker on your dev machine. And users tell us we delivered! Improvements include:

Faster and more reliable – native development environment using hypervisors built into each operating system. (No more VirtualBox!)

Improved Docker tools integration – all the Docker tools you need to develop locally are bundled in the app.

– all the Docker tools Improved development flow – Volume mounting for your code and data, and easy access to running containers on the localhost network. In-container debugging with supported IDEs also help you live debug projects, and iterate code quicker with less effort.

– Volume mounting for your code and data, and easy access to running containers on the localhost network. In-container debugging Enterprise network support that lets Docker for Mac and Windows work easily with VPNs.

All the new features available in Docker Engine 1.12.

Automatic updates, with different channels for stable and beta.

Docker 1.12

And speaking of 1.12, there’s a whole other post on the architecture and features in Docker 1.12, but here’s a quick recap:

Easy to use built-in orchestration, try it with docker swarm init

End-to-end encryption, secure by default

Services: replicated, distributed, load balanced processes running on a swarm of Engines

Stable and Beta Channels

With Docker for Mac and Windows maturing and widely adopted, we want make sure that it’s a reliable and dependable tool. But we also want to keep up the rapid pace of innovation and progress that Docker for Mac and Windows beta users have come to know and love over the past months.

So starting today, Docker for Mac and Windows are available from 2 channels – stable and beta. New features and bug fixes will go out first in auto-updates to users in the beta channel. Updates to the stable channel are much less frequent and happen in sync with major and minor releases of the Docker engine. Only features that are well-tested and ready for production are added to the stable channel releases.

If you want the latest and greatest Docker experimental builds, use the beta channel. If you want fewer updates and can wait until new features and enhancements are tested and production-ready, use the stable channel.

If you are currently a beta user, your Docker for Mac or Windows install will remain on the beta channel, and be automatically updated with future beta releases. To switch to the stable release, simply download and run the stable installer.

If you want to try the beta releases and help by giving us feedback, download the beta installer here

Or use the stable versions:

If you encounter bugs or problems, please see the troubleshooting guide for Mac and Windows and don’t hesitate to reach on the forums.