Docker Desktop is a containerization platform for developers and teams building and deploying containerized applications.
Alternatives to OrbStack
LXD is an open source platform for managing system containers and virtual machines on Linux.
Incus is free software for managing system containers, application containers and virtual machines.
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Apptainer
Apptainer is a free container platform for creating and running portable, reproducible workloads, with a focus on shared systems and high-performance computing.
Free planAPILinuxmacOSSelf-hosted6.7Free plan - 5
Rancher Desktop
Rancher Desktop is a free, open-source desktop application for managing containers and Kubernetes on a local machine.
Free planAPILinuxmacOSWindows6.7Free plan - 6
6.5Free plan - 7
crun
crun is a free OCI container runtime written in C for Linux and self-hosted environments.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted6.5Free plan - 8

Podman
Podman manages containers, pods, and images, with workflows for finding, running, building, and sharing container workloads.
Free planAPILinuxmacOSSelf-hosted6.4Free plan - 9
gVisor
gVisor is free, open-source software that provides a Linux-compatible sandbox and application kernel for isolating containers from the host operating system.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted6.3Free plan - 10
youki
youki is a Linux container runtime written in Rust that implements the OCI runtime specification.
Free planLinux6.3Free plan - 11
Finch
Finch is a free, open-source tool for local container development on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Free planLinuxmacOSWindows6.2Free plan - 12
containerd
containerd is a free container runtime for managing a host’s container lifecycle, including image transfer and storage, execution, and supervision.
Free planLinuxSelf-hostedWindows6.1Free plan - 13

Podman Desktop
Podman Desktop is a free graphical tool for creating and managing containers, pods, and Kubernetes workloads locally.
Free planLinuxmacOSWindows6.1Free plan - 14
Apple container
Apple container creates and runs Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on a Mac.
Free planmacOSSelf-hosted6.0Free plan - 15

Mirantis Container Runtime
Mirantis Container Runtime (MCR) is a paid enterprise container engine for running business-critical applications with a supported runtime.
APILinuxSelf-hostedWindows6.0From $1,125 a year - 16

Charliecloud
Charliecloud is free, open source container software for high performance computing applications on Linux.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.9Free plan - 17

Kata Containers
Kata Containers is a free, open-source container runtime that uses lightweight virtual machines to isolate workloads while fitting into the container ecosystem.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.9Free plan - 18
LXC
LXC is free software for creating and managing Linux system or application containers using containment features in the Linux kernel.
Free planAPILinuxSelf-hosted5.9Free plan - 19

SingularityCE
SingularityCE is a free, open-source container tool for packaging software into portable, reproducible single files.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.9Free plan - 20
firecracker-containerd
firecracker-containerd enables containerd to manage containers as Firecracker microVMs, adding an isolation layer through the KVM hypervisor.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.8Free plan - 21
OpenVZ
OpenVZ is free open-source software for Linux container virtualization.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.8Free plan - 22
Sysbox
Sysbox is a free, open-source container runtime for running system workloads in rootless containers on Linux hosts.
Free planLinuxSelf-hosted5.8Free plan - 23
Kuasar
Kuasar is a Linux, self-hosted low-level container runtime for managing container and sandbox lifecycles.
APILinuxSelf-hosted5.7 - 24
SCONE
Free planLinuxmacOSWindows5.5Free plan - 25

CRI-O
CRI-O implements the Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface so Kubernetes can launch and manage OCI containers.
APILinuxSelf-hosted5.4 - 26
runc
LinuxSelf-hosted5.2 - 27

Docker Engine
LinuxmacOSWindows4.9

