Best Container Engines for Linux of 2024

Ambassador Edge Stack, a Kubernetes-native API Gateway, provides simplicity, security, and scalability for some of the largest Kubernetes infrastructures in the world. Ambassador Edge Stack makes it easy to secure microservices with a complete set of security functionality including automatic TLS, authentication and rate limiting. WAF integration is also available. Fine-grained access control is also possible. The API Gateway is a Kubernetes-based ingress controller that supports a wide range of protocols, including gRPC, gRPC Web, TLS termination, and traffic management controls to ensure resource availability.

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure offers fast, flexible, affordable compute capacity that can be used to support any workload, from lightweight containers to performant bare metal servers to VMs and VMs. OCI Compute offers a unique combination of bare metal and virtual machines for optimal price-performance. You can choose exactly how many cores and memory your applications require. High performance for enterprise workloads Serverless computing simplifies application development. Kubernetes, containers and other technologies are available. NVIDIA GPUs are used for scientific visualization, machine learning, and other graphics processing. Capabilities include RDMA, high performance storage and network traffic isolation. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure consistently delivers better pricing performance than other cloud providers. Virtual machine-based (VM), shapes allow for custom core and memory combinations. Customers can choose a number of cores to optimize their costs.

Cloud Foundry makes it easier to build, test and deploy applications faster. It offers a variety of cloud, developer frameworks and application services. It is open-source and available through a variety private cloud distributions as well as public cloud instances. Cloud Foundry uses a container-based architecture to run apps in any programming language. You can deploy apps to CF with your existing tools and without any modifications to the code. With CF BOSH, you can instantly deploy, manage, and manage Kubernetes clusters that are high-availability. You can decouple applications from infrastructure to make individual decisions about where to host workloads. This allows you to move workloads as needed in minutes with no changes to your app.

Kubernetes is the platform for big ideas. The leading enterprise container platform, hybrid cloud, empowers developers to innovate faster and ship more products. Red Hat OpenShift automates installation, upgrades, lifecycle management, and lifecycle management for the entire container stack, including Kubernetes, cluster services, and applications. It can be used on any cloud. Red Hat OpenShift allows teams to build with speed, agility and confidence. You can code in production mode wherever you choose to build. Do the important work. Red Hat OpenShift focuses on security at all levels of the container stack as well as throughout the application lifecycle. It includes enterprise support from one the most prominent Kubernetes contributors as well as open source software companies.

Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (formerly Docker Enterprise) gives you the power to build, run, and scale cloud native applications—the way that works for you. Increase developer efficiency and release frequency while reducing cost. Deploy Kubernetes and Swarm clusters out of the box and manage them via API, CLI, or web interface. Kubernetes, Swarm, or both Different apps—and different teams—have different container orchestration needs. Use Kubernetes, Swarm, or both depending on your specific requirements. Simplified cluster management Get up and running right out of the box—then manage clusters easily and apply updates with zero downtime using a simple web UI, CLI, or API. Integrated role-based access control (RBAC) Fine-grained security access control across your platform ensures effective separation of duties, and helps drive a security strategy built on the principle of least privilege. Identity management Easily integrate with your existing identity management solution and enable two-factor authentication to provide peace of mind that only authorized users are accessing your platform. Mirantis Kubernetes Engine works with Mirantis Container Runtime and Mirantis Secure Registry to provide security compliance.

Mesos is built on the same principles as Linux, but at a higher level of abstraction. The Mesos kernel runs at every machine. It provides applications (e.g. Hadoop, Spark Kafka, Elasticsearch, Kafka) with API's that allow for resource management and scheduling across all datacenters and cloud environments. Native support for Docker and AppC images launching containers. Support for legacy and cloud native applications running in the same cluster using pluggable scheduling policies.

rkt is an application containers engine that was developed for modern production cloud environments. It is pod-native, pluggable execution environments, and a well-defined area that allows for easy integration with other systems. The pod is the core execution unit of RKT. It is a collection or applications that execute in a shared context. (Pods in Kubernetes orchestration software are synonymous with rkt's pods). rkt lets users apply different configurations (such as isolation parameters) at both the pod-level and per-application levels. Rkt's architecture allows each pod to execute in the Unix process model (i.e. There is no central daemon, and each pod executes in its own isolated environment. rkt implements an open container format called the App Container (appc spec), but can also execute other container images such as those created with Docker.

Kubernetes with low-ops and minimal production, for developers, cloud, clusters workstations Edge and IoT. MicroK8s automatically selects the best nodes to host the Kubernetes database. If you lose a cluster node, a new node is promoted. Your bulletproof edge is available without the need for admin. MicroK8s are small and have sensible defaults that "just work". It is ideal for micro cloud computing and edge computing because it is easy to install, upgrades are quick and offers great security. No subscription required for full enterprise support. Optional 24/7 support and 10 year security maintenance. Under the cell tower. On the racecar. MicroK8s provides the full Kubernetes experience for IoT and microclouds on satellites and everyday appliances. For ultra-reliable operations, fully containerized deployment with over-the-air compressed updates. MicroK8s will automatically apply security updates by default. You can defer them if necessary. You can upgrade to a newer Kubernetes version with one command. It's that simple.

What is Podman? Podman is a daemonless container engine that allows you to develop, manage, and run OCI Containers on your Linux System. Containers can be run in root or rootless mode. Simply put: alias docker=podman. Manage containers, pods, and container images.

A Moby Project engine from Docker that is specifically designed for embedded and IoT use. It is 3.5x smaller than Docker CE and packaged as one binary. There are many chipset architectures that can be used to support everything from small IoT devices to large industrial gateways. Bandwidth-efficient updates using binary diffs are 10-70x less than pulling layers in most scenarios. To prevent unnecessary writing to disk, extract layers as they arrive. This protects your storage from possible corruption. In the event of power outage, durable and atomic image pulls protect against partial container pulls. Image pull prevents page cache thrashing, so your application runs unaffected in low-memory environments. balenaEngine, a new container engine designed for embedded and IoT use and compatible with Docker containers, is now available. BalenaEngine, which is based on Docker's Moby Project technology, supports container deltas that provide 10-70x more efficient bandwidth usage.

Kubernetes is KuberSphere's kernel. KubeSphere is a distributed operating platform for cloud-native app management. It allows third-party applications to seamlessly integrate into its ecosystem through a plug-and play architecture. KubeSphere is a multi-tenant, open-source Kubernetes container system with full-stack automated IT operations. It also has streamlined DevOps workflows. It offers a wizard web interface that is easy to use for developers, allowing enterprises to create a robust and feature-rich Kubernetes platform. This includes all the common functions required for enterprise Kubernetes strategy development. Open-source Kubernetes platform CNCF-certified, 100% built by the community. It can be deployed on existing Kubernetes clusters or Linux machines. It supports both online and air-gapped installations. Deliver DevOps and service mesh, observability and application management, multi-tenancy storage, networking management, and other services in a single platform.

One-click migration of existing VM workloads. Instant mobility of your applications across cloud and on-prem environments. Continuous mobility is possible. You can migrate from on-prem to cloud, across clouds, and back. You can embrace the cloud in your own way. Application mobility is essential for business continuity. This requires a multi-cloud approach. Don't waste time on lengthy and costly VM migration projects. Instashift allows you to automate in a single click. There is no need to use complicated approaches. You can migrate your VMs with all applications, databases, states. Continuous mobility for your instashifted apps. In a few clicks, you can move to the cloud or back on-prem. You need to move thousands of VMs. Instashift provides an automated solution that works seamlessly. A new innovation platform for emerging and sovereign cloud providers that delivers the same capabilities and flexibility as the public cloud.

The Open Container Initiative is an open governance organization that was created with the purpose of creating industry standards for container formats and runtimes. The OCI was established in June 2015 by Docker and others in the container industry. It currently contains two specifications: the runtime specification (runtime spec) and image specification (image spec). The runtime specification describes how to run a filesystem bundle that has been unpacked on disk. An OCI implementation would download an OCI Image and then unpack the image into an OCI Runtime bundle. The OCI Runtime Bundle will then be run. Open Container Initiative (OCI), a lightweight, open governance project, was created under the auspices Linux Foundation for the purpose of creating open industry standards around container formats. Docker, CoreOS, and other leaders launched the OCI on June 22nd 2015.

CLI tool to spawn and run containers according the OCI specification. Linux is not supported by runc. It must be built using Go version 1.17 or greater. To enable seccomp support, you must install libseccomp to your platform. Runc supports optional build tags to compile support for various features. Some of these features are enabled by default. Docker is currently supported by runc for running its test suite. Just type make test to run the suite. You can run the tests outside of a container, but this is not recommended. The tests are written with the assumption that they can be written and removed from any location. You can set the TESTFLAGS variable to run a specific test case. You can run a specific integration testing by setting the TESTPATH variable. You can run a specific rootless test of integration by setting the ROOTLESS_TESTPATH variables. Runc is a low-level tool that was not intended for end-users.

Open source container-based virtualization of Linux. Multiple isolated, secure Linux containers (also known as VEs and VPSs) can be installed on a single server to improve server utilization and ensure that applications do not clash. Each container works and executes exactly as a standalone server. A container can be rebooted separately and has root access, users and IP addresses. It can also have root access, root, users, memory, processes and files.

LXD is the next generation system container manager. It provides a similar user experience to virtual machines, but with Linux containers instead. It is image-based and has pre-made images for a variety of Linux distributions. It is built around a powerful, but simple, REST API. You can get a better understanding of LXD and its capabilities by trying it online. If you are interested in running it locally, then take a look to our getting started guide. Canonical Ltd founded the LXD project and leads it today. Contributions from other companies and individuals are also welcome. LXD's core is a privileged daemon that exposes a REST API both over a local socket and over the network (if it is enabled). Clients, such the command line tool included with LXD, then access that REST API to perform all tasks. This means that everything works the same regardless of whether you are talking to a local host or remote server.

LXC is the userspace interface to the Linux kernel containment features. It allows Linux users to create and manage system and application containers using a simple API and simple tools. LXC containers can be described as something that is somewhere in between a chroot or a fully fledged virtual machine. LXC aims to provide an environment that is as close to a standard Linux installation as possible, but without the need to use a separate kernel. LXC is free software. Most of the code is released under GNU LGPLv2.1+, some Android compatibility bits under a standard 2-clause BSD licence, and some binaries, templates, and binaries are released under GNU GPLv2.