Out of curiosity, why do you not want to use the real docker compose with podman, now that it's supported?
Docker compose expects me to have a server running. While I technically could run "podman system service" and configure docker compose to point at a non-standard socket or port in order to run it I would really prefer not to have that kind of headache just to run a script.
Docker compose was also written by docker and exhibits similar levels of shoddiness to docker. The accumulation of bad design decisions by docker is, indeed, why podman exists in the first place. With a little bit of love podman compose could easily surpass docker compose.
I just wanted to clarify that you can run docker-compose with podman in _rootless_ mode. This can be done by running podman's systemd user service.
I could maybe use some entrypoint magic to run a server when the container starts just so I can use docker compose but still...eww.
Running a podman systemd service might suffice if it was something that could be installed with a snap of two fingers on every environment but if it means fscking around with service files it's definitely not something I'd want to add to a "set up a development environment" README.
FWIW it's possible to run a rootless podman container with a working systemd inside the container. I've near tried running podman in podman using systemd though.
Would love to be proven wrong, as I ended up down quite a rabbit hole with this topic somewhat recently.
In my experience they work fine together most of the time, I have ran into compatibility bugs sometimes, though things seem to be steadily improving.