Docker is absolutely terrible on Mac when it comes to RAM usage. I’m not even exaggerating—it’s been eating up so much memory that I’m seriously reconsidering my entire setup.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
On my PC, I had 128GB of DDR5 RAM. I could run Docker instances without thinking about it. I even had Hyper-V instances running and would literally forget they were there. RAM was never a concern.
Now I’m on a Mac Mini M4 Pro with 24GB, and activity monitor is telling me I haven’t hit anything less than 16GB usage just doing day-to-day work. That’s before running any Docker containers.
The Expensive Reality
Here’s the painful part—to get more RAM, I’d need to buy a whole new machine. I’m looking at the 48GB Mac Studio, and that’s so expensive. On PC, I could just buy more DDR5 sticks. Sure, it wasn’t cheap at around $300 for 64GB, but at least it was possible.
With Mac’s unified memory architecture, you’re locked into whatever you bought. No upgrades, no adding more later.
The LLM Problem
I can potentially run 30B local LLMs with 24GB of RAM, which is actually pretty decent. But here’s the catch—I need to quit everything else. VS Code, other apps, Docker containers—everything has to go.
I can’t run LLMs alongside my normal development workflow, which defeats the purpose of having local models for development work.
Why This Hurts
Back on Windows with WSL, Docker was so much more compatible and efficient. The irony? I initially bought this Mac thinking native Unix-like development would be better than WSL. Then I discovered WSL and realized it solved most of my Windows development issues.
So my main reason for switching to Mac was kind of defeated by WSL being actually really good.
Current Workarounds
I’m being much more aggressive about stopping Docker containers when I’m not actively using them. On my PC, I would leave 4-5 containers running because why not? Now every container matters.
I’m also questioning whether I should upgrade to the 48GB Studio or just accept that Mac development means being more resource-conscious.
The Bottom Line
Mac RAM is expensive, and Docker doesn’t help. If you’re coming from a high-RAM PC setup like I was, prepare for some serious workflow adjustments. The unified memory architecture might be great for some workloads, but for Docker-heavy development, it feels limiting.
Maybe I should have gotten the 48GB version from the start, but hindsight is 20/20. And honestly, even 48GB would cost more than my entire PC RAM setup.
Still figuring out if this trade-off is worth it for the Mac ecosystem benefits.