Side by side
Apptainer vs containerd
Both stand on container engines. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.
Free plan APILinuxMac+2
Apptainer is oriented toward portable container workloads on Linux, particularly in HPC settings. Check host kernel requirements and the Linux environment needed on Windows or macOS before adopting it.
Visit Apptainer Free plan LinuxSelf-hostedWindows
containerd provides lifecycle management and Kubernetes runtime support for larger systems on Linux or Windows. Teams should account for its out-of-scope networking and image-building tasks, and for the additional runc and CNI plugin requirements.
Visit containerdThe facts
| Apptainer | containerd | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Not published | Not published |
| Runs on | API, Linux, Mac, Self-hosted, Windows | Linux, Self-hosted, Windows |
| Lowest paid plan | Free or on request | Free or on request |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Maker | Not published | Not published |
| Website | apptainer.org | containerd.io |
| On container engines | #1 of 31 | #5 of 31 |
Apptainer: what it does well
- Creates portable, immutable single-file SIF images.
- Supports encrypted containers and cryptographic signing.
- Can access GPUs and other host resources.
- Root access is unnecessary with user namespaces.
What to know first
- Requires Linux to run.
- Windows and macOS need a Linux environment.
- Full functionality requires FUSE and unprivileged user namespaces.
containerd: what it does well
- Supports OCI image push and pull operations.
- Built-in CRI plugin supports Kubernetes clusters.
- Available as a daemon for Linux and Windows.
- Free and Apache 2.0 licensed.
What to know first
- Network-interface management is out of scope.
- Image building is not a first-class API feature.
- ctr has no interface stability guarantee.
- Nightly builds are unsupported and not recommended for production.
Alternatives to Apptainer Alternatives to containerd The whole list