If WASM+WASI existed in 2008, we wouldn't have needed to created Docker. That's how important it is. Webassembly on the server is the future of computing. A standardized system interface was the missing link. Let's hope WASI is up to the task!
I think WASM/WASI still has a ways to go before that’s realistic, but I’d keep an eye on them for the future.
From a practical standpoint I’m really not qualified recommend one over the other, but the licensing is different. Podman also seems to be more “open source-y,” but I’m going on vibes here; perhaps someone more knowledgeable can elucidate.
I would suggest that if someone is using neither, perhaps consider podman as open source. However, I too would need a reason to move. I mainly use synology for images, so its their container manager, rather than docker but my understanding is its docker under the hood.
From what I heard, podman doesn’t require root but that’s about it. On the other side, it’s a redhat thing and it’s not as popular which means less documented and less containers
Supposed to be an easy, if not a drop in replacement afaik, it's under a permissive licence (Apache 2.0), beyond that it's authored by RedHat I can't tell you much else, it's something I've been considering moving to personally (and work, pretty much for licencing and the few of us that want to use more open tech stacks) I just haven't had a chance to work with it.
Supposedly able to pull docker images and work with docker-compose, just not swarm.
I think the very long-term goal is for it to be the universal virtual machine, for all front-ends and all back-ends, and for all popular programming languages. And given that its status on the browser has already been secured, I don’t think it’s impossible for the long-term vision to be reached, eventually.
I honestly and truly don't want to spend time relearning another system like this, especially one without decades of documentation and support available.