crun VS QEMU

Compare crun vs QEMU and see what are their differences.

crun

A fast and lightweight fully featured OCI runtime and C library for running containers (by containers)

QEMU

Official QEMU mirror. Please see https://www.qemu.org/contribute/ for how to submit changes to QEMU. Pull Requests are ignored. Please only use release tarballs from the QEMU website. (by qemu)
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crun QEMU
30 190
2,797 9,313
2.0% 1.7%
9.3 10.0
4 days ago 6 days ago
C C
GNU General Public License v3.0 only GNU General Public License v3.0 or later
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.

crun

Posts with mentions or reviews of crun. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-03-06.
  • Show HN: dockerc – Docker image to static executable "compiler"
    12 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Mar 2024
    Yep pretty much.

    The executables bundle crun (a container runtime)[0], and a fuse implementation of squashfs and overlayfs. Appended to that is a squashfs of the image.

    At runtime the squashfs and overlayfs are mounted and the container is started.

    [0]: https://github.com/containers/crun

  • Howto: WASM runtimes in Docker / Colima
    5 projects | dev.to | 12 Jan 2024
    cpu: 4 disk: 60 memory: 12 arch: host hostname: colima autoActivate: true forwardAgent: false # I only tested this with 'docker', not 'containerd': runtime: docker kubernetes: enabled: false version: v1.24.3+k3s1 k3sArgs: [] network: address: true dns: [] dnsHosts: host.docker.internal: host.lima.internal # Added: # - containerd-snapshotter: true (meaning containerd will be used for pulling images) # - default-runtime / runtimes: crun (instead of the default 'runc') docker: default-runtime: crun features: buildkit: true containerd-snapshotter: true runtimes: crun: path: /usr/local/bin/crun vmType: vz rosetta: true mountType: virtiofs mountInotify: false cpuType: host # This provisioning script installs WasmEdge and builds crun with wasmedge support: provision: - mode: system script: | [ -f /etc/docker/daemon.json ] && echo "Already provisioned!" && exit 0 echo "Install system updates:" apt-get update -y apt-get upgrade -y echo "Install WasmEdge and crun dependencies:" # NOTE: packages curl git python3 already installed: apt-get install -y make gcc build-essential pkgconf libtool libsystemd-dev libprotobuf-c-dev libcap-dev libseccomp-dev libyajl-dev libgcrypt20-dev go-md2man autoconf automake criu apt-get clean -y - mode: user script: | [ -f /etc/docker/daemon.json ] && echo "Already provisioned!" && exit 0 echo "Installing WasmEdge:" curl -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WasmEdge/WasmEdge/master/utils/install.sh | sudo bash -s -- -p /usr/local echo echo "`wasmedge -v` installed!" # NOTE: I failed to Configure Wasmtime properly - turned off for now: #echo "Installing Wasmtime:" #curl -sSf https://wasmtime.dev/install.sh | bash #sudo cp .wasmtime/bin/* /usr/local/bin/ #rm -rf .wasmtime #echo "`wasmtime -V` installed!" echo "Install crun:" git clone https://github.com/containers/crun cd crun ./autogen.sh #./configure --with-wasmedge --with-wasmtime ./configure --with-wasmedge make sudo make install crun -v echo "crun installed! Replacing runc with crun:" # NOTE: replacing runc with runc is to simplify containerd config TRC=`which runc` sudo rm -rf $TRC sudo cp `which crun` $TRC echo "Configuring containerd:" sudo mkdir -p /etc/containerd/ containerd config default | sudo tee /etc/containerd/config.toml >/dev/null echo "Restarting/reloading docker/containerd services:" sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl restart containerd # As soon as Colima writes its /etc/docker/daemon.json file (right after this provisioning script), # it will also start the Docker daemon. If we stop Docker here, the changes will actually take effect: sudo systemctl stop docker sshConfig: true mounts: [] env: {}
  • Google assigns a CVE for libwebp and gives it a 10.0 score
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Sep 2023
    On this note, I was really surprised to find Red Hat's OCI runtime is written in C: https://github.com/containers/crun

    Is anyone working on a Rust version?

  • US Cybersecurity: The Urgent Need for Memory Safety in Software Products
    3 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 21 Sep 2023
    It's interesting that, in light of things like this, you still see large software companies adding support for new components written in non-memory safe languages (e.g. C)

    As an example Red Hat OpenShift added support for crun(https://github.com/containers/crun) this year(https://cloud.redhat.com/blog/whats-new-in-red-hat-openshift...), which is written in C as an alternative to runc, which is written in Go(https://github.com/opencontainers/runc)...

  • Barco: Linux Containers from Scratch in C
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 6 Aug 2023
  • Crun: Fast and lightweight OCI runtime and C library for running containers
    1 project | /r/hypeurls | 4 Jun 2023
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 4 Jun 2023
    Kubernetes needs an OCI runtime to run containers with. Crun is one implementation it can use.

    Docker also appears to be able to use crun for it's engine as well. https://github.com/containers/crun/issues/37

  • Best virtualization solution with Ubuntu 22.04
    8 projects | /r/linuxquestions | 28 May 2023
    crun
  • Why did the Krustlet project die?
    6 projects | /r/kubernetes | 14 Jan 2023
  • Is this an incompatibility with docker or an I doing something else wrong?
    1 project | /r/podman | 22 Nov 2022
    Looks like https://github.com/containers/crun/issues/255 - start there.

QEMU

Posts with mentions or reviews of QEMU. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-03.
  • QEMU Version 9.0.0 Released
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 24 Apr 2024
    My most-wanted QEMU feature: https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/a2260983c6553

    Using `gic-version=3` on macOS you can now use more than 8 cores on ARM chips.

  • Autoconf makes me think we stopped evolving too soon
    8 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 3 Apr 2024
    A better solution is just to write a plain ass shell script that tests if various C snippets compile.

    https://github.com/oilshell/oil/blob/master/configure

    https://github.com/oilshell/oil/blob/master/build/detect-pwe...

    Not an unholy mix of m4, shell, and C, all in the same file.

    ---

    These are the same style as a the configure scripts that Fabrice Bellard wrote for tcc and QEMU.

    They are plain ass shell scripts, because he actually understands the code he writes.

    https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/configure

    https://github.com/TinyCC/tinycc/blob/mob/configure

    OCaml’s configure script is also “normal”.

    You don’t have to copy and paste thousands of lines of GNU stuff that you don’t understand.

    (copy of lobste.rs comment)

  • WASM Instructions
    13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Feb 2024
    Related:

    A fast Pascal (Delphi) WebAssembly interpreter:

    https://github.com/marat1961/wasm

    WASM-4:

    https://github.com/aduros/wasm4

    Curated list of awesome things regarding WebAssembly (wasm) ecosystem:

    https://github.com/mbasso/awesome-wasm

    Also, it would be nice if there was a WASM (soft) CPU for QEMU, which (if it existed!) would go here:

    https://github.com/qemu/qemu/tree/master/target

  • Revng translates (i386, x86-64, MIPS, ARM, AArch64, s390x) binaries to LLVM IR
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 12 Jan 2024
    > architectural registers are always updated

    In tiny code, the guest registers (global TCG variables) are stored in the host's registers until you either call an helper which can access the CPU state or you return (`git grep la_global_sync`). This is the reason why QEMU is not so terribly slow.

    But after a check, this also happens when you access the guest memory address space! https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/master/include/tcg/tcg-opc... (TCG_OPF_SIDE_EFFECTS is what matters)

    But still, in the end, it's the same problem. What QEMU does, can be done in LLVM too. You could probably be more efficient in LLVM by using the exception handling mechanism (invoke and friends) to only serialize back to memory when there's an actual exception, at the cost of higher register pressure. More or less what we do here: https://rev.ng/downloads/bar-2019-paper.pdf

  • State of x86-64 emulation of non-MacOS binaries
    1 project | /r/MacOS | 7 Dec 2023
    Um, in case you don't know, UTM (based on QEMU) is out for quite a while.
  • Multipass: Ubuntu Virtual Machines Made Easy
    3 projects | dev.to | 15 Nov 2023
    Some of these tools include Oracle VM VirtualBox (that I've used since before the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle), VMWare Workstation Player, and QEMU, but last year, I found out about Multipass.
  • Libsodium: A modern, portable, easy to use crypto library
    9 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 14 Sep 2023
    For C/C++ projects that use meson as the build system, there is an excellent way to manage dependencies:

    https://mesonbuild.com/Wrapdb-projects.html

    https://mesonbuild.com/Wrap-dependency-system-manual.html

    meson will download and build the libraries automatically and give you a variable which you pass as a regular dependency into the built target:

    https://github.com/qemu/qemu/tree/005ad32358f12fe9313a4a0191...

    https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/tree/main/subprojects

    https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/blob/37457412b3212463c5...

    Or, if you're using proper operating systems, they're managed by the usual package manager, just like everything else.

  • Top 6 Virtual Machine Software in 2023
    1 project | dev.to | 10 Aug 2023
    For all the users of the Linux platform, QEMU is the VM that you should go for. This software comes without any price tag and works as an emulator of various machines with utmost ease and completion; the software uses dynamic translations to emulate hardware peripherals and enhances its overall performance. If you are using QEMU as a virtualizer, then it will function exactly like the host system (provided you have the right set of hardware).
  • Show HN: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 9 Aug 2023
  • UTM for Developers
    2 projects | dev.to | 17 Jul 2023
    In this tutorial, we set up macOS and Windows virtual machines on UTM, a macOS application that provides a GUI wrapper for QEMU, a powerful open-source emulator and virtualizer. UTM allows you to easily manage and run virtual machines without memorizing complex commands. It also has special handling for macOS, making it simpler to install compared to other virtual machine software.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing crun and QEMU you can also consider the following projects:

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

UTM - Virtual machines for iOS and macOS

youki - A container runtime written in Rust

TermuxArch - Experience the pleasure of the Linux command prompt in Android, Chromebook, Fire OS and Windows on smartphone, smartTV, tablet and wearable https://termuxarch.github.io/TermuxArch/

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

Unicorn Engine - Unicorn CPU emulator framework (ARM, AArch64, M68K, Mips, Sparc, PowerPC, RiscV, S390x, TriCore, X86)

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

Vagrant - Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing development environments.

wasm-micro-runtime - WebAssembly Micro Runtime (WAMR)

xemu - Original Xbox Emulator for Windows, macOS, and Linux (Active Development)

runtime-tools - OCI Runtime Tools

em-dosbox - An Emscripten port of DOSBox