Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Kata Containers VS runc

Compare Kata Containers VS runc and see what are their differences

Kata Containers logo Kata Containers

Lightweight virtual machines that seamlessly plug into the containers ecosystem.

runc logo runc

CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification - opencontainers/runc
  • Kata Containers Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-07-03
  • runc Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-21

Kata Containers features and specs

  • Security
    Kata Containers offer enhanced security by providing hardware virtualization, which creates a secure boundary around each container. This isolation helps in protecting against attacks and vulnerabilities that might affect other containers.
  • Performance
    Kata Containers are designed to have low overhead compared to traditional virtual machines, allowing them to run with performance akin to native containers while still benefiting from hardware-based isolation.
  • Compatibility
    Kata Containers are compatible with the OCI container runtime specification, making it possible to integrate them with existing cloud-native tools and ecosystems like Kubernetes without significant changes.
  • Flexibility
    They offer a flexible choice for deploying containerized workloads that require the security of virtual machines, allowing organizations to meet both performance and security requirements effectively.

Possible disadvantages of Kata Containers

  • Complexity
    Implementing Kata Containers can introduce additional complexity compared to using regular containers, especially in managing the virtualization layer and ensuring smooth integration with existing container orchestration systems.
  • Resource Overhead
    Although they are lightweight compared to traditional VMs, Kata Containers still incur more overhead than standard containers, requiring more resources in terms of CPU and memory.
  • Maturity
    As a relatively newer technology, Kata Containers may not have the level of maturity and community support that more established container technologies enjoy, potentially leading to challenges in troubleshooting and support.
  • Infrastructure Requirements
    Running Kata Containers effectively may require specific hardware features like VT-x/AMD-V for hardware virtualization, which can limit deployment options on older or less capable hardware.

runc features and specs

  • Standardization
    runc is part of the Open Containers Initiative (OCI), promoting standardization across container runtimes. This ensures interoperability and broad community support.
  • Lightweight
    As a lightweight and fast CLI tool, runc provides a minimal runtime for environments where resource efficiency is critical.
  • Security
    runc adheres to principles of secure software development and incorporates Linux kernel features like namespaces and cgroups to enhance security.
  • Broad Adoption
    As the reference implementation for OCI, runc is widely adopted and tested in production environments, ensuring reliability.
  • Flexibility
    runc offers the flexibility to handle low-level container configurations, making it suitable for advanced users needing granular control.

Possible disadvantages of runc

  • Complexity for Beginners
    The low-level nature of runc can be daunting for beginners who might prefer higher-level tools like Docker that abstract away complexities.
  • Minimalist Design
    While its simplicity is an advantage, runc lacks some of the advanced features and orchestration capabilities found in other container platforms.
  • Manual Configurations
    Users need to manually handle configurations, which can be error-prone and time-consuming compared to automated solutions.
  • Ecosystem Integration
    runc does not provide direct integration with tools and platforms by default, requiring additional setup for comprehensive ecosystem support.
  • Limited Features
    Compared to complete container platforms, runc offers fewer built-in features, requiring supplementary tools to achieve similar functionalities.

Kata Containers videos

Kata Containers and gVisor a Quantitative Comparison

More videos:

  • Review - Open Source Contribution - Kata Containers Unit Testing
  • Demo - Kata Containers Demo: A Container Experience with VM Security

runc videos

2/21/19 RunC Vulnerability Gives Root Access on Container Systems| AT&T ThreatTraq

More videos:

  • Review - Demo MONEY,TIME - RunC

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Kata Containers and runc)
Developer Tools
39 39%
61% 61
Web Servers
0 0%
100% 100
Containers As A Service
100 100%
0% 0
Web And Application Servers

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, runc should be more popular than Kata Containers. It has been mentiond 11 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Kata Containers mentions (4)

  • Kubernetes Without Docker: Why Container Runtimes Are Changing the Game in 2025
    Kata Containers Containers in VMs, because sometimes isolation means business. - Source: dev.to / 22 days ago
  • WASM Will Replace Containers
    See https://katacontainers.io Turns out only containers is not secure enough. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Comparing 3 Docker container runtimes - Runc, gVisor and Kata Containers
    Although the documentation also mentions "youki", that is mentioned as a "drop-in replacement" of the default runtime basically doing the same, so let's stick with runc. The second runtime will be Kata runtime from Kata containers, since it runs small virtual machines which is good for showing how differently it uses the CPU and memory. This also adds a higher level of isolation with some downsides as well. And... - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Hacking Alibaba Cloud's Kubernetes Cluster
    Ronen: Our case study with Alibaba revealed they were using shared Linux namespaces between containers, such as their management container and our container. Sharing Linux namespaces can be dangerous. When designing a system that shares namespaces or resources between management and regular user containers, constantly carefully assess and be aware of the risks involved. Container technologies like GVisor and Kata... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago

runc mentions (11)

  • Setup multi node kubernetes cluster using kubeadm
    For kubeadm , kubetlet , kubectl should same version package in this lab I used v1.31 to have 1.31.7 References: Https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/networking/ports-and-protocols/ Https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/production-environment/tools/kubeadm/install-kubeadm/ Https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/releases/... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Comparing 3 Docker container runtimes - Runc, gVisor and Kata Containers
    Previously I wrote about the multiple variants of Docker and also the dependencies behind the Docker daemon. One of the dependencies was the container runtime called runc. That is what creates the usual containers we are all familiar with. When you use Docker, this is the default runtime, which is understandable since it was started by Docker, Inc. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • You run containers, not dockers - Discussing Docker variants, components and versioning
    Now we have dockerd which uses containerd, but containerd will not create containers directly. It needs a runtime and the default runtime is runc, but that can be changed. Containerd actually doesn't have to know the parameters of the runtime. There is a shim process between containerd and runc, so containerd knows the parameters of the shim, and the shim knows the parameters of runc or other runtimes. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • US Cybersecurity: The Urgent Need for Memory Safety in Software Products
    It's interesting that, in light of things like this, you still see large software companies adding support for new components written in non-memory safe languages (e.g. C) As an example Red Hat OpenShift added support for crun(https://github.com/containers/crun), which is written in C as an alternative to runc, which is written in Go( - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Why did the Krustlet project die?
    Yeah, runtimeClass lets you specify which CRI plugin you want based on what you have available. Here's an example from the containerd documentation - you could have one node that can run containers under standard runc, gvisor, kata containers, or WASM. Without runtimeClass, you'd need either some form of custom solution or four differently configured nodes to run those different runtimes. That's how krustlet did... Source: over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Kata Containers and runc, you can also consider the following products

Docker - Docker is an open platform that enables developers and system administrators to create distributed applications.

Docker Hub - Docker Hub is a cloud-based registry service

OrbStack - Fast, light, simple Docker & Linux on macOS

Apache Thrift - An interface definition language and communication protocol for creating cross-language services.

FreeBSD Jails - Jails on the other hand permit software packages to view the system egoistically, as if each package had the machine to itself.

Eureka - Eureka is a contact center and enterprise performance through speech analytics that immediately reveals insights from automated analysis of communications including calls, chat, email, texts, social media, surveys and more.