Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

containerd VS Apache Portable Runtime

Compare containerd VS Apache Portable Runtime and see what are their differences

containerd logo containerd

An industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability

Apache Portable Runtime logo Apache Portable Runtime

The Apache Portable Runtime (APR) is a supporting library for the Apache web server.
  • containerd Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-04-15
  • Apache Portable Runtime Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-16

containerd features and specs

  • Lightweight
    Containerd focuses on providing core container primitives, making it lightweight and efficient compared to more comprehensive container management platforms.
  • CNCF Graduated
    Being a CNCF (Cloud Native Computing Foundation) graduated project means containerd has undergone rigorous scrutiny and is recognized as stable and secure.
  • Highly Modular
    Containerd provides a well-defined API with gRPC, making it highly modular and allowing for fine-grained control over container lifecycle management.
  • Kubernetes Integration
    Containerd acts as the default container runtime for Kubernetes via the CRI (Container Runtime Interface) plugin, ensuring excellent synergy with Kubernetes-managed environments.
  • Vendor-Neutral
    Containerd is an open-source project that is vendor-neutral, promoting community collaboration and reducing vendor lock-in.
  • Wide Industry Support
    Spearheaded initially by Docker, containerd has received wide support from tech giants like Google and Alibaba, ensuring a broad and robust adoption across the industry.

Possible disadvantages of containerd

  • Limited to Container Management
    Unlike platforms like Docker, containerd focuses solely on container lifecycle management and does not offer advanced networking, storage solutions, or orchestration engines.
  • Complex Integration
    While offering a high level of control, containerd’s modularity can translate into higher complexity when it comes to integrating it with other tools, such as monitoring and logging systems.
  • Fewer Features Out-of-the-Box
    Containerd provides fewer features out-of-the-box compared to more comprehensive container management systems, which may require additional components to achieve a similar feature set.
  • Steeper Learning Curve
    Due to its focus on being a low-level runtime, containerd can have a steeper learning curve for users not familiar with container runtime internals.

Apache Portable Runtime features and specs

  • Portability
    APR provides a consistent API across various platforms, enabling developers to write applications that are portable between different operating systems.
  • Performance
    APR is designed to provide high-performance solutions for common programming tasks, such as file I/O, network communication, and memory management, optimized for each supported platform.
  • Rich API Set
    APR provides a comprehensive set of APIs for handling tasks like file operations, network sockets, shared memory, and threading, which can simplify application development.
  • Open Source
    Being an open-source library, APR allows developers to inspect, modify, and distribute the source code, fostering community collaboration and trust.
  • Apache Integration
    APR is used by Apache HTTP Server and other Apache projects, offering proven stability and performance tested in enterprise environments.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Portable Runtime

  • Complexity
    The wide range of functionality and extensive API set can introduce complexity, making the learning curve steeper for new developers.
  • Limited Language Support
    APR is primarily designed for use with C and C++. Developers using other programming languages may find it less accessible or require additional bindings.
  • Platform Specific Issues
    Despite its goal of portability, certain platform-specific issues or limitations may arise, requiring additional effort to ensure consistent application behavior.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Using APR can introduce additional dependencies into a project, potentially complicating the build process and increasing the size of the deployed application.
  • Not Always Necessary
    For applications that do not require cross-platform compatibility or for environments where minimal external dependencies are preferred, the use of APR might not be justified.

containerd videos

Deep Dive: containerd - Derek McGowan, Docker & Phil Estes, IBM Cloud

Apache Portable Runtime videos

No Apache Portable Runtime videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to containerd and Apache Portable Runtime)
Cloud Computing
84 84%
16% 16
Cloud Storage
70 70%
30% 30
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Storage
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using containerd and Apache Portable Runtime. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare containerd and Apache Portable Runtime

containerd Reviews

5 Container Alternatives to Docker
containerd is described as “an industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability.” An incubating project of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation, containerd is available as a daemon for Linux or Windows.

Apache Portable Runtime Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Portable Runtime yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, containerd seems to be a lot more popular than Apache Portable Runtime. While we know about 55 links to containerd, we've tracked only 5 mentions of Apache Portable Runtime. 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.

containerd mentions (55)

  • Kubernetes Without Docker: Why Container Runtimes Are Changing the Game in 2025
    Containerd Official Site The runtime powering most cloud K8s clusters and your future mental breakdowns. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Creating containers with containerd on ARM
    Also, Containers are the tool when you want to speed your process of updating your software and get modularity and portability when deploying your solutions. In this post you will learn how containerd together with nerdctl can help you with this use case scenario. Check their official websites for more info https://containerd.io and https://github.com/containerd/nerdctl. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Beyond Docker - A DevOps Engineer's Guide to Container Alternatives
    Having operated large Kubernetes clusters, one learns to love the focused approach of containerd. A light-weight, high-performance container runtime, it powers a lot of container platforms, including indirectly, Kubernetes. From my experience, containerd really does one thing and does it well: it runs containers efficiently. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Top 8 Docker Alternatives to Consider in 2025
    Containerd operates as a fundamental container runtime that manages the complete container lifecycle, functioning at a lower level than Docker while providing core container operations. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • You run containers, not dockers - Discussing Docker variants, components and versioning
    So once we had a single binary, then "Docker, Inc" started separating the functionalities into multiple binaries on Linux. That was the beginning the of dependencies and components we have today, except that these dependencies are now not limited to Docker. Containerd can also be the container runtime of Kubernetes. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
View more

Apache Portable Runtime mentions (5)

  • Giving C++ std:regex a C makeover
    Something like that would probably end up similar to GLib or the Apache Portable Runtime. https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/ https://apr.apache.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • My review of the C standard library in practice
    There are many libraries available that you can use as a libc replacement instead of CCAN, if that’s what you prefer [1-3]. Taking on a beefy dependency like that can be overkill, though, if all you need is a linked list or dynamic array implementation. [1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/glib/ [2] http://apr.apache.org/ [3] https://libcork.io/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Is there a custom "C Standard Library" out there?
    There are many. APR is one of them. APR stands for Apache Portable Runtime. It includes arrays(aprarray) and hash tables(aprhash), but not trees. Source: over 2 years ago
  • A C Standard Library
    A library that already implements some of this called libapr is what I’d consider a good example of libraries of this Ilk. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Git's list of banned C functions
    It's not really complacency: it's that the standard library is intentionally minimalistic to maintain portability and backwards compatibility. If you want sensible string handling, it's usually best to use a high level utility library like GLib(https://developer.gnome.org/glib/stable/) or Apache Portable Runtime(http://apr.apache.org/), or roll your own safe string type (preferably non-null terminating). - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing containerd and Apache Portable Runtime, you can also consider the following products

Podman - Simple debugging tool for pods and images

rkt - App Container runtime

CRI-O - Lightweight Container Runtime for Kubernetes

GlusterFS - GlusterFS is a scale-out network-attached storage file system.

Apache Karaf - Apache Karaf is a lightweight, modern and polymorphic container powered by OSGi.

Apache ServiceMix - Apache ServiceMix is an open source ESB that combines the functionality of a Service Oriented Architecture and the modularity.