balenaEngine vs containerd
balenaEngine
balena.iocontainerd
containerd.ioSide by side
| Figure | balenaEngine | containerd |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Container Engines | 7.3 (#20) | 8.0 (#9) |
| Purpose | balenaEngine is a container engine purpose-built for embedded and IoT use cases, based on Moby Project technology from Docker. | containerd is an industry-standard container runtime for managing a host’s container lifecycle, including image transfer and storage, execution, and supervision. |
Plans
In their own words
balenaEngine
balenaEngine has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
containerd
containerd is a free container runtime for managing a host’s container lifecycle. It handles image transfer and storage, execution, and supervision, and is designed to be embedded in a larger system rather than used directly by developers or end users. It supports OCI images and image push and pull operations, and uses runc by default while allowing other OCI-compliant runtimes. Its built-in CRI plugin can make it the container runtime for a Kubernetes cluster, and it supports registries compliant with the OCI Distribution Specification. The daemon is available for Linux and Windows. Network-interface management and image building are outside containerd’s first-class scope, so higher-level systems or tools handle those jobs. Its ctr command-line tool is intended for development and debugging, without a guarantee of a stable interface or a human-friendly experience. Users typically also need runc and CNI plugins. The plan is free; free plan available, with no free trial.