Publisher & Certified Content Overview
Estimated reading time: 2 minutesIndependent Software Vendors (ISVs) can utilize Docker Hub to distribute and sell their Dockerized content. Publish your software through Docker Hub to experience the following benefits:
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Access to Docker’s large and growing customer-base. Docker has experienced rapid adoption, and is popular in dev-ops environments. Docker users have pulled images over twelve billion times and they are increasingly turning to Docker Hub as the canonical source for high-quality, curated content.
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Customers can try or buy your software, right from your product listing. Your content is accessible for installation, trial, and purchase from Docker Hub and the Docker CLI.
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Use of Docker licensing support. Control who has access to your software: a) logged-in users, b) users who have purchased a license, or c) all Docker users. We’ll help you manage and control your distribution.
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We handle checkout. You don’t need to set up your own digital e-commerce site when you sell your content through Docker Hub. Choose how much you want to charge for your products and we handle the billing.
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Seamless updates and upgrades for your customers. We tell your customers when your content has upgrades or updates available.
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Become Docker Certified. Publisher container images and plugins that meet the quality, security, and support criteria of the program displays a “Docker Certified” badge within the Docker Hub (which can be used in external marketing).
Distribution models
Docker Hub welcomes free and open-source content, as well as software sold directly by publishers. We support the following commercial models:
Paid through Docker
This commercial model allows customers to pay for ISV content through Docker, as described in the Store Vendor Partner agreement. Paid-through-Docker content includes both software that can be deployed on a host, as well as software that runs in the cloud and can be accessed by the customer through an agent (containerized cloud services, for example).
Licensed content through Docker Hub BYOL program
ISVs can use Docker Hub as an entitlement and distribution platform. Using APIs provided by Docker, ISVs can entitle users and distribute their Dockerized content to many different audiences:
- Existing customers that want their licensed software made available as Docker containers.
- New customers that are only interested in consuming their software as Docker containers.
- Trial or beta customers, where the ISV can distribute feature or time limited software.
Docker provides a fulfillment service so that ISVs can programmatically entitle users, by creating subscriptions to their content in Docker Hub. For more information, see Bring Your Own License (BYOL) products on Store.
Plugins and agents
ISVs have the ability to create and distribute plugin images for their customers to integrate with the ISV’s proprietary hardware or cloud infrastructure and Docker Enterprise Edition deployments.
You can apply to be a publisher and learn more about our Technology Partner Program.
What’s next?
- Learn about submitting products and content to Docker Hub, see the publishers guide and the publisher FAQs.
- Learn about using Docker Hub to download content, see the customer FAQs.