Best Podman Alternatives & Competitors in 2025

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

Key containerd features:

Lightweight CNCF Graduated Highly Modular Kubernetes Integration

Open Source

Manage and share development environments with all the frameworks and libraries you need, then publish artifacts anywhere. Harness the power of Nix.

Key Flox features:

Reproducibility Ease of Use Isolation Community Support

Flagsmith lets you manage feature flags and remote config across web, mobile and server side applications. Deliver true Continuous Integration. Get builds out faster. Control who has access to new features. We're Open Source.

Key Flagsmith features:

Feature Flags Remote Config A/B/X Testing & Optimization Organization Management

Try for free Open Source freemium

Buildah is a web-based OCI container tool that allows you to manage the wide range of images in your OCI container and helps you to build the image container from the scratch.

Key Buildah features:

Lightweight Daemon-less Flexibility Security

Open Source

Lightweight Container Runtime for Kubernetes

Key CRI-O features:

Lightweight Kubernetes Integration Security Vendor Neutral

Open Source

Fast, Declarative, Reproducible, and Composable dev envs

Key devenv features:

Ease of Use Scalability Environment Consistency Integration Capabilities

Open Source

Crane is a docker image builder to approach light-weight ML users who want to expand a container image with custom apt/conda/pip packages without writing any Dockerfile.

Key Crane features:

Open Source Integration with Kubernetes Scalability Flexibility

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

Key Docker features:

Portability Efficiency Isolation Scalability

Open Source

Daemon based on liblxc offering a REST API to manage containers

Key LXD features:

Lightweight Security Scalability Comprehensive API

Docker Hub is a cloud-based registry service

Key Docker Hub features:

Wide Availability Ease of Use Integrated with Docker CLI Automated Builds

Open Source

BuildKit is an open-source toolkit manager application that allows you to build the artifacts in a minimum time frame and helps you to gather the garbage automatically.

Key BuildKit features:

Improved Caching Parallel Build Stages Flexible Syntax Security Improvements

Artifactory Docker Registry is an advanced-level and cloud-based software solution that allows you to manage all your Docker images in the best possible manner and it permits you to execute an unlimited number of the Docker registries.

Key Artifactory Docker Registry features:

Universal Package Support Integration with CI/CD Tools Security and Access Controls High Availability

ZeroVM is an open source virtualization technology that is based on the Chromium Native Client project.

Key ZeroVM features:

Lightweight Security Scalability Open-source

Everyday utilities for the everyday developer

Key DevBox features:

Streamlined Setup Cross-Platform Support Cloud Integration Pre-Built Environments