Compare the Top Container Engines that integrate with Docker as of July 2025

This a list of Container Engines that integrate with Docker. Use the filters on the left to add additional filters for products that have integrations with Docker. View the products that work with Docker in the table below.

What are Container Engines for Docker?

Container engines are software platforms that facilitate the creation, deployment, and management of containers in a computing environment. Containers are lightweight, portable, and consistent units of software that include everything needed to run an application, such as the code, libraries, and system tools. Container engines enable developers to package and isolate applications in a way that allows them to run uniformly across different environments, making them ideal for cloud, microservices, and DevOps workflows. These engines typically support features like container orchestration, scalability, resource management, and container lifecycle management. Compare and read user reviews of the best Container Engines for Docker currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Google Cloud Run
    Google Cloud Run supports the use of container engines like Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), enabling seamless deployment and management of containerized applications at scale. With GKE, users can manage Kubernetes clusters and integrate them with Cloud Run for orchestrating containerized services, enhancing flexibility in deployment strategies. While Cloud Run itself abstracts the Kubernetes management layer, it provides a powerful engine that allows developers to utilize containers in their application delivery pipeline. The $300 in free credits available to new customers can be used to explore how Cloud Run integrates with container engines to streamline and optimize application management. This integration is particularly valuable for teams that want the benefits of Kubernetes without the overhead of managing clusters directly. Cloud Run ensures that containerized workloads are easy to deploy, manage, and scale with minimal manual configuration.
    Starting Price: Free (2 mil requests/month)
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  • 2
    Apache Mesos

    Apache Mesos

    Apache Software Foundation

    Mesos is built using the same principles as the Linux kernel, only at a different level of abstraction. The Mesos kernel runs on every machine and provides applications (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Elasticsearch) with API’s for resource management and scheduling across entire datacenter and cloud environments. Native support for launching containers with Docker and AppC images.Support for running cloud native and legacy applications in the same cluster with pluggable scheduling policies. HTTP APIs for developing new distributed applications, for operating the cluster, and for monitoring. Built-in Web UI for viewing cluster state and navigating container sandboxes.
  • 3
    rkt

    rkt

    Red Hat

    rkt is an application container engine developed for modern production cloud-native environments. It features a pod-native approach, a pluggable execution environment, and a well-defined surface area that makes it ideal for integration with other systems. The core execution unit of rkt is the pod, a collection of one or more applications executing in a shared context (rkt's pods are synonymous with the concept in the Kubernetes orchestration system). rkt allows users to apply different configurations (like isolation parameters) at both pod-level and at the more granular per-application level. rkt's architecture means that each pod executes directly in the classic Unix process model (i.e. there is no central daemon), in a self-contained, isolated environment. rkt implements a modern, open, standard container format, the App Container (appc) spec, but can also execute other container images, like those created with Docker.
  • 4
    balenaEngine
    An engine purpose-built for embedded and IoT use cases, based on Moby Project technology from Docker. 3.5x smaller than Docker CE, packaged as a single binary. Available for a wide variety of chipset architectures, supporting everything from tiny IoT devices to large industrial gateways. Bandwidth-efficient updates with binary diffs, 10-70x smaller than pulling layers in common scenarios. Extract layers as they arrive to prevent excessive writing to disk, protecting your storage from eventual corruption. Atomic and durable image pulls defend against partial container pulls in the event of power failure. Prevents page cache thrashing during image pull, so your application runs undisturbed in low-memory situations. balenaEngine is a new container engine purpose-built for embedded and IoT use cases and compatible with Docker containers. Based on Moby Project technology from Docker, balenaEngine supports container deltas for 10-70x more efficient bandwidth usage.
  • 5
    Open Container Initiative (OCI)

    Open Container Initiative (OCI)

    Open Container Initiative (OCI)

    The Open Container Initiative is an open governance structure for the express purpose of creating open industry standards around container formats and runtimes. Established in June 2015 by Docker and other leaders in the container industry, the OCI currently contains two specifications, the runtime specification (runtime-spec) and the image specification (image-spec). The runtime specification outlines how to run a “filesystem bundle” that is unpacked on disk. At a high-level an OCI implementation would download an OCI Image then unpack that image into an OCI Runtime filesystem bundle. At this point the OCI Runtime Bundle would be run by an OCI Runtime. The Open Container Initiative (OCI) is a lightweight, open governance structure (project), formed under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, for the express purpose of creating open industry standards around container formats and runtime. The OCI was launched on June 22nd 2015 by Docker, CoreOS and other leaders.
  • 6
    runc

    runc

    Open Container Initiative (OCI)

    CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification. runc only supports Linux. It must be built with Go version 1.17 or higher. In order to enable seccomp support, you will need to install libseccomp on your platform. runc supports optional build tags for compiling support of various features, with some of them enabled by default. runc currently supports running its test suite via Docker. To run the suite just type make test. There are additional make targets for running the tests outside of a container but this is not recommended as the tests are written with the expectation that they can write and remove anywhere. You can run a specific test case by setting the TESTFLAGS variable. You can run a specific integration test by setting the TESTPATH variable. You can run a specific rootless integration test by setting the ROOTLESS_TESTPATH variable. Please note that runc is a low-level tool not designed with an end-user in mind.
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