Apptainer vs gVisor
Apptainer
apptainer.orggVisor
gvisor.devSide by side
| Figure | Apptainer | gVisor |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Container Engines | 8.9 (#1) | 8.3 (#6) |
| Spec score · Container Runtime Software | 8.9 (#1) | 8.3 (#7) |
| GPU support | Apptainer supports NVIDIA CUDA, AMD ROCm, Intel Gaudi, and OCI Container Device Interface accelerators. | gVisor supports most CUDA applications on selected NVIDIA driver versions, and the GPU application can run unmodified inside the sandbox. |
| Purpose | Apptainer creates and runs containers that package software for portability and reproducibility. | gVisor is an open-source Linux-compatible sandbox and application kernel that isolates containers from the host operating system. |
| Security reporting | The Technical Steering Committee manages project security, and the policy directs vulnerability reports through private contact with the project. | The project asks that sensitive security reports be sent to its security mailing list or submitted privately through GitHub advisories, and says a response is typically provided within 48 hours. |
| Support | Free support resources include Slack, a mailing list, and GitHub, while commercial support and services are offered through CIQ. | The project directs users to GitHub issues, documentation, and mailing lists for support and community discussion. |
Plans
In their own words
Apptainer
Apptainer is a free container platform for creating and running portable, reproducible workloads, with a focus on shared systems and high-performance computing. It packages containers as immutable, single-file Singularity Image Format (SIF) images designed for transport and sharing. By default, users retain the same privileges inside and outside containers. Images can be signed and verified with PGP keys, PEM keys or X.509 certificates, and encrypted containers can run without writing decrypted contents to disk. Apptainer imports containers from OCI registries and aims to support most Docker Hub containers without changes. It can expose host resources such as GPUs, high-speed networks and parallel filesystems, and supports NVIDIA CUDA, AMD ROCm, Intel Gaudi and OCI Container Device Interface accelerators. Running Apptainer requires Linux; Windows and macOS need a Linux virtual machine, with Windows also listed via WSL2. Root access is unnecessary when user namespaces are available. Full functionality requires kernel support for FUSE and unprivileged user namespaces. Community support includes Slack, Google Groups and GitHub, with commercial services through CIQ.
gVisor
gVisor is a free, open-source Linux-compatible sandbox and application kernel for running containers while isolating the host from untrusted code. It is intended for workloads such as user-uploaded, LLM-generated, and third-party code. Instead of passing sandboxed applications’ system calls directly to the host, its Sentry handles them; a Gofer process mediates filesystem access. The project describes a least-privilege design with a restrictive system call filter. It documents use with Docker, Kubernetes, containerd, and OCI runtimes, including Kubernetes configurations using GKE Sandbox, Minikube, or containerd with the gVisor shim. gVisor can stream application trace points to an external threat detection engine such as Falco, and can checkpoint and restore containers. Most CUDA applications can run unmodified in the sandbox with selected NVIDIA driver versions, but GPU support is restricted to certain models, drivers, capabilities, device files, ioctl calls, and platforms. Installation requires Linux 5.6 or later on x86_64 or ARM64. Compatibility is best-effort, and some applications may not work because not every system call, /proc file, or /sys file is implemented. Hardware side-channel protection is generally not provided.