head to head · open source
Docker vs sops
Docker has 72,113 GitHub stars, 19,233 forks, 3,902 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sops has 23,163 stars, 1,082 forks, 446 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Docker leads on adoption by 211% (72,113 vs 23,163 stars). Docker is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sops is written in Go under MPL-2.0. Docker has attracted 27% as many forks as stars, sops 5%. Docker was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Docker | sops | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 72K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Docker if
- You weight community size — 72K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sops if
- You want the sops feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sops fits your workflow better
About Docker
Docker, published here as the Moby Project, is the open source collection of container toolkit components and the framework for assembling them into custom container based systems, built for engineers, integrators and enthusiasts who want to modify, hack and build on container code rather than buy a commercially supported product.
read the full Docker overview →
About sops
SOPS, short for Secrets OPerationS, is an editor of encrypted files written in Go and released under the Mozilla Public License Version 2.0. It handles YAML, JSON, ENV, INI and BINARY formats, and it encrypts those files using AWS KMS, GCP KMS, Azure Key Vault, HuaweiCloud KMS, age, or PGP. The project lives in the cloud native infrastructure ecosystem: it started at Mozilla in 2015, was donated to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in 2023, and is now a CNCF Sandbox project under a new group of maintainers. It carries 23,121 stars and 1,080 forks, with documentation hosted at getsops.io.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Docker or sops more popular?
Docker has 72,113 GitHub stars and sops has 23,163. Docker has the larger community by that measure.
Are Docker and sops free?
Both are open source. Docker is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sops under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Docker and sops?
Docker is written in Go and sops in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Docker or sops?
Choose Docker if you want the larger community (72,113 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sops if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.