Podman doesn't have a dependency on systemd. e.g. it is packaged in Void Linux.
Podman has a better architecture than Docker in that it can easily run on a non-privileged user.
Quadlet (aka podman-systemd.unit) is a podman-systemd integration which can make it easy to launch and orchestrate podman containers via systemd. You can get all if the systemd dependency handling, require other units to run after a container finishes, and all sorts of other useful things. Systemd "user" units (systemctl --user) also works here with the containers running as a non-privileged user in a non-root systemd context.
Just to be clear, Quadlet is just an integration and you can still run podman without it. You can still run podman on non-systemd systems as well.
Just to be clear we're talking about QUADLETS, red hat's recommended way to orchestrate containers.
>Just to be clear, Quadlet is just an integration and you can still run podman without it.
Just to be clear, nobody was unclear about that.
It is, just to be clear, red hat's recommended way to orchestrate podman containers despite having this nasty dependency analogous to the one docker has on a root service.
Oh, you were quite unclear. Also wrong in saying you need systemd with podman to orchestrate multiple containers without root.
>It is, just to be clear, red hat's recommended way to orchestrate podman containers despite having this nasty dependency analogous to the one docker has on a root service.
It's not "red hat's recommended way to orchestrate podman containers" in general. It's "red hat's recommended way to orchestrate containers on top of systemd", that its whole point.
Nothing nasty about it either, you'd already be running systemd on your redhat system (and many non red-hat ones).
It was a shitty decision that renders it just "a less popular docker" and not "a better docker".