BuildKit

BuildKit is a next-generation toolkit for building container images, designed for efficiency, security, and extensibility. It modernizes the `docker build` experience by providing a high-performance, concurrent, and cache-aware engine for declarative image construction. As part of the Moby…

Key facts

First appeared
2017
Category
technology
Problem solved
BuildKit was created to overcome the limitations of Docker's legacy build engine, particularly its lack of parallel execution, inefficient caching mechanisms, limited extensibility, and absence of built-in multi-platform build capabilities. It aimed to provide a faster, more secure, and more flexible foundation for building container images.
Platforms
Linux (x86-64, ARM64, ARMv7), Windows (via Docker Desktop's Linux VM), macOS (via Docker Desktop's Linux VM)

Related technologies

Notable users

  • Docker (as its core build engine)
  • GitHub Actions (via `docker/setup-buildx-action`)
  • Google Cloud Build
  • AWS CodeBuild
  • Many enterprises utilizing Docker for containerization