cri-tools vs containerd

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cri-tools		containerd
	Project
7	Mentions	125
1,551	Stars	16,336
1.4%	Growth	2.4%
9.2	Activity	9.9
5 days ago	Latest Commit	1 day ago
Go	Language	Go
Apache License 2.0	License	Apache License 2.0

The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

cri-tools

Posts with mentions or reviews of cri-tools. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2022-09-04.

Migrating from dockershim to containerd
2 projects | /r/kubernetes | 4 Sep 2022

Installing crictl (https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools/blob/master/docs/crictl.md) was helpful, as well as journalctl -u containerd.
kubectl get nodes -o wide shows containerd runtime, but sudo ctr containers list doesn't return any containers on host
2 projects | /r/kubernetes | 12 Jul 2022
Debugging containerd, A "new" container runtime means new debugging techniques are required
1 project | /r/kubernetes | 11 Jun 2022

crictl: Uses the CRI interface to fetch data about containers, agnostic of CRIs. Maintained by Kubernetes at https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools
Quick question: Can you run crictl commands from within a running container?
1 project | /r/kubernetes | 4 Apr 2022

FROM alpine:latest RUN wget -O - https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools/releases/download/v1.23.0/crictl-v1.23.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz | gunzip | tar xvf - && mv crictl /usr/bin
k8s-the-hard-way
11 projects | dev.to | 26 Oct 2021

# wget https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/cri-tools/releases/download/v1.21.0/crictl-v1.21.0-linux-amd64.tar.gz \ https://github.com/opencontainers/runc/releases/download/v1.0.0-rc93/runc.amd64 \ https://github.com/containernetworking/plugins/releases/download/v0.9.1/cni-plugins-linux-amd64-v0.9.1.tgz \ https://github.com/containerd/containerd/releases/download/v1.4.4/containerd-1.4.4-linux-amd64.tar.gz \ https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.21.0/bin/linux/amd64/kubectl \ https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.21.0/bin/linux/amd64/kube-proxy \ https://storage.googleapis.com/kubernetes-release/release/v1.21.0/bin/linux/amd64/kubelet
A Window into Docker, minikube, and containerd
4 projects | dev.to | 28 Sep 2021

We are in the endgame now. I promise. From the README, crictl provides a CLI for CRI-compatible container runtimes. The following snippet performs the following:
😎 Manage WebAssembly Apps in WasmEdge Using Docker Tools
9 projects | dev.to | 29 Jun 2021

Also make sure that you have cri-o, crictl, containernetworking-plugins, and buildah or docker installed.

containerd

Posts with mentions or reviews of containerd. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-18.

Exploring 5 Docker Alternatives: Containerization Choices for 2024
3 projects | dev.to | 18 Mar 2024

Containerd and nerdctl
The Road To Kubernetes: How Older Technologies Add Up
5 projects | dev.to | 5 Feb 2024

Kubernetes on the backend used to utilize docker for much of its container runtime solutions. One of the modular features of Kubernetes is the ability to utilize a Container Runtime Interface or CRI. The problem was that Docker didn't really meet the spec properly and they had to maintain a shim to translate properly. Instead users could utilize the popular containerd or cri-o runtimes. These follow the Open Container Initiative or OCI's guidelines on container formats.
Fun with Avatars: Containerize the app for deployment & distribution | Part. 2
4 projects | dev.to | 20 Jan 2024

Container Engine: A runtime that executes and manages containers. Docker and containerd are popular container engines.
Complexity by Simplicity - A Deep Dive Into Kubernetes Components
4 projects | dev.to | 18 Dec 2023

Multiple container runtimes are supported, like conatinerd, cri-o, or other CRI compliant runtimes.
macOS Containers v0.0.1
24 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Sep 2023

This is a failed attempt to upstream part of containerd changes: https://github.com/containerd/containerd/pull/8789
Other part of containerd changes waits for gods-know-what: https://github.com/containerd/containerd/pull/9054
But I haven't gave up yet.
Latest versions of Docker cause memory leak in MySQL 5.7
1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Sep 2023
Kubernetes Setup With WSL Control Plane and Raspberry Pi Workers
5 projects | dev.to | 1 Sep 2023

containerd is required by kubernetes to handle containers on its behalf. A big thanks to the HostAfrica blog for the information on setting containerd up for debain. So the containerd install will need to happen on both the WSL2 instance and the Raspberry Pis. For WSL2 you can just install containerd directly:
Bingo of the Kubernetes problems I found myself debugging over the past weeks. AMA :p
1 project | /r/kubernetes | 10 Jul 2023

The context deadline exceeded: unknown is also in containerd, and is a known problem.
Hi peeps, I am getting error installing docker. Now let me give you some context. I was trying to install docker on the google colab notebook. As google colab is ubuntu under the hood. So I just followed the docker linux terminal installation commands.
1 project | /r/GoogleColab | 1 Jul 2023

Get:1 https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu focal/stable amd64 containerd.io amd64 1.6.21-1 [28.3 MB]
Docker Explained - Again
1 project | /r/docker | 17 Jun 2023

Docker Desktop adds a bunch of stuff to simplify local development and that’s why it has a larger memory footprint. You don’t use that when deploying but something like https://containerd.io/.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing cri-tools and containerd you can also consider the following projects:

node-feature-discovery - Node feature discovery for Kubernetes

podman - Podman: A tool for managing OCI containers and pods.

cni - Container Network Interface - networking for Linux containers

cri-o - Open Container Initiative-based implementation of Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface

SSVM - WasmEdge is a lightweight, high-performance, and extensible WebAssembly runtime for cloud native, edge, and decentralized applications. It powers serverless apps, embedded functions, microservices, smart contracts, and IoT devices.

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

cfssl - CFSSL: Cloudflare's PKI and TLS toolkit

podman-compose - a script to run docker-compose.yml using podman

runc - CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification

colima - Container runtimes on macOS (and Linux) with minimal setup

rustwasmc - Tool for building Rust functions for Node.js. Combine the performance of Rust, safety and portability of WebAssembly, and ease of use of JavaScript.

sysbox - An open-source, next-generation "runc" that empowers rootless containers to run workloads such as Systemd, Docker, Kubernetes, just like VMs.