containerd

containerd is an industry-standard, core container runtime that manages the complete container lifecycle of its host system. It handles image transfer and storage, container execution and supervision, and low-level storage and network attachments.

Key facts

First appeared: 2016
Category: technology
Problem solved: containerd was created to solve the problem of a monolithic Docker Engine, which tightly coupled container runtime logic with higher-level orchestration and user experience layers. It aimed to provide a standardized, pluggable, and OCI-compliant low-level container runtime that could be easily integrated into different container orchestration systems, reducing complexity and increasing interoperability.
Platforms: Windows, Linux

Related technologies

BuildKit
CRI-O
runC
Docker
Podman
Kubernetes

Notable users

Red Hat (OpenShift)
Google (Kubernetes)
Alibaba Cloud
Baidu Cloud
Docker
Amazon (EKS)
Microsoft (Azure Container Instances)