Open-source container runtimes and Kubernetes distributions in 2026

New open-source projects

1. 1
   Gately wangwanjie

   Open-source, auditable network gateway for homelabs, NAS and servers: DDNS, STUN traversal, port forwarding with SNI routing, reverse proxy and web server, ACME certificates, WAF, Tailscale, frp, Cloudflare Tunnel, Docker and web terminal in one binary. Runs on Docker, fnOS, OpenWrt, Linux, macOS and Windows.

   Complete system Experimental You run a homelab or NAS behind a home router and want DDNS, certificates and a reverse proxy in one console instead of several separate tools.

   ★ 477 Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed yesterday
2. 2
   Kern getkern

   Rootless container runtime with no daemon. Runs agent tool calls and LLM-generated code in kernel-enforced containers.

   Developer tool Experimental You run code produced by an LLM agent on Linux and want it sandboxed in real containers without a Docker daemon or root.

   ★ 463 Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed 4 days ago

Open-source container runtimes and Kubernetes distributions

Complete systems you can adopt 7

1. 1
   Talos Linux siderolabs

   Talos Linux is a modern Linux distribution built for Kubernetes.

   Complete system Production-ready You run your own Kubernetes clusters on bare metal or VMs and want an OS with little to patch and no manual drift.

   ★ 11k MPL-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
2. 2
   OKD okd-project

   The self-managing, auto-upgrading, Kubernetes distribution for everyone

   Complete system Usable You want OpenShift's developer and operations features without a Red Hat subscription and can support it yourself.

   ★ 2.1k Apache-2.0 HCL Active, pushed today
3. 3
   Gately wangwanjie

   Open-source, auditable network gateway for homelabs, NAS and servers: DDNS, STUN traversal, port forwarding with SNI routing, reverse proxy and web server, ACME certificates, WAF, Tailscale, frp, Cloudflare Tunnel, Docker and web terminal in one binary. Runs on Docker, fnOS, OpenWrt, Linux, macOS and Windows.

   Complete system Experimental You run a homelab or NAS behind a home router and want DDNS, certificates and a reverse proxy in one console instead of several separate tools.

   ★ 477 Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed yesterday
4. 4
   MetalK8s scality

   An opinionated Kubernetes distribution with a focus on long-term on-prem deployments

   Complete system Usable You need Kubernetes on air-gapped on-premise hardware, particularly alongside Scality storage products.

   ★ 396 Apache-2.0 Scheme Active, pushed today
5. 5
   SIGHUP Distribution sighupio

   SIGHUP Distribution (SD) - A battle-tested open-source Kubernetes distribution

   Complete system Usable You want a curated, upstream-based Kubernetes stack with a European vendor available for support.

   ★ 216 BSD-3-Clause Go Template Active, pushed today
6. 6
   DockDash dougmaitelli

   A self-hosted dashboard for visualizing Docker containers and network services. DockDash discovers services automatically, tracks their health, monitors container image updates, and lets you map connections between them on an interactive canvas.

   Complete system Usable You run a homelab with version-pinned Docker images and want upgrade notices that say which version is available, not only that a digest changed.

   ★ 203 AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
7. 7
   Monogon monogon

   The Monogon Monorepo. May contain traces of peanuts and a ✨pure Go Linux userland✨. Work in progress! [read-only mirror - currently outdated]

   Complete system Experimental Only to follow or study the project; it describes itself as pre-release software.

   ★ 401 Apache-2.0 Go Slowing, pushed 12 months ago

Frameworks and platforms to build on 1

1. 1
   Kubernetes kubernetes

   Production-Grade Container Scheduling and Management

   Framework or platform Production-ready You run many services across many machines and have, or will hire, the platform engineers to operate a cluster or a managed one.

   ★ 129k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
   

Building blocks for your own system 3

1. 1
   Moby moby

   The Moby Project - a collaborative project for the container ecosystem to assemble container-based systems

   Building block Production-ready You are building or modifying a container platform and need the upstream engine source rather than the packaged Docker product.

   ★ 72k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
   
2. 2
   K3s k3s-io

   Lightweight Kubernetes

   Building block Production-ready You need real Kubernetes on edge devices, small VMs, homelabs or CI, where a full distribution is too heavy.

   ★ 34k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
   
3. 3
   k0s k0sproject

   k0s - The Zero Friction Kubernetes

   Building block Production-ready You want a certified, plain-upstream Kubernetes that installs the same way on bare metal, VMs, edge or air-gapped sites.

   ★ 6.6k See repository Go Active, pushed today

Developer tools 4

1. 1
   Podman Desktop podman-desktop

   Podman Desktop is the best free and open source tool to work with Containers and Kubernetes for developers. Get an intuitive and user-friendly interface to effortlessly build, manage, and deploy containers and Kubernetes — all from your desktop.

   Developer tool Production-ready Developers need a free graphical alternative to Docker Desktop, for instance because Docker's licence fees apply to your company size.

   ★ 8.1k Apache-2.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
2. 2
   Kern getkern

   Rootless container runtime with no daemon. Runs agent tool calls and LLM-generated code in kernel-enforced containers.

   Developer tool Experimental You run code produced by an LLM agent on Linux and want it sandboxed in real containers without a Docker daemon or root.

   ★ 463 Apache-2.0 Rust Active, pushed 4 days ago
3. 3
   OrbStack orbstack

   Fast, light, simple Docker containers & Linux machines

   Developer tool Production-ready You develop with Docker on a Mac and find Docker Desktop slow or heavy on battery.

   ★ 9.5k MIT Shell Quiet, pushed 15 months ago
   
4. 4
   Pharos Cluster kontena

   Pharos - The Kubernetes Distribution

   Developer tool Experimental Do not adopt it for new clusters; it is only relevant if you still maintain an old Pharos install.

   ★ 307 Apache-2.0 Ruby Quiet, pushed 6 years ago

Lists, courses and other material 3

1. 1
   Vas-quod flouthoc

   :aerial_tramway: Minimal linux container runtime

   List, course or other material Experimental You want to read a short, working example of how containers are made from Linux system calls.

   ★ 449 BSD-2-Clause Rust Quiet, pushed 5 years ago
2. 2
   Pura penumbra23

   Easy to use, extendable, OCI-compliant container runtime written in pure Rust

   List, course or other material Experimental You are studying the OCI runtime specification and want a small Rust implementation to read.

   ★ 128 MIT Rust Quiet, pushed 3 years ago
3. 3
   diyC w-vi

   A simple educational linux container runtime.

   List, course or other material Experimental You are learning or teaching how Linux containers work underneath Docker.

   ★ 118 GPL-2.0 C Quiet, pushed 6 years ago

Compared head to head

Open-source licenses

• Permissive: 14. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
• Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.
• Network copyleft: 1. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
• Strong copyleft: 1. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.

Languages

Go 7, Rust 3, TypeScript 2, HCL 1, Scheme 1, Shell 1, Go Template 1, Ruby 1 and C 1.