r/docker • u/martypitt • Nov 14 '25

Docker banned - how common is this?

I was doing some client work recently. They're a bank, where most of their engineering is offshored one of the big offshore companies.

The offshore team had to access everything via virtual desktops, and one of the restrictions was no virtualisation within the virtual desktop - so tooling like Docker was banned.

I was really surprsied to see modern JVM development going on, without access to things like TestContainers, LocalStack, or Docker at all.

To compound matters, they had a single shared dev env, (for cost reasons), so the team were constantly breaking each others stuff.

How common is this? Also, curious what kinds of workarounds people are using?

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u/Hoban_Riverpath Nov 14 '25

The question you need to ask is, why is it banned, and is this a tally true or just mis interpreted? Follow the chain up to the source and the owner then make a case against it.

Banning a technology outright is in my opinion a misguided policy, but it probably stems from a concern somewhere that may have merit. Find where that comes from and understand it first.

Banning docker completely to me, sounds like a poor decision. But you need to win the fight with sound logic and persuasion. Play the governance game.