BuildKit vs gVisor
BuildKit
github.comgVisor
gvisor.devSide by side
| Figure | BuildKit | 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 (#2) | 8.3 (#6) |
| Architecture | BuildKit is composed of the buildkitd daemon and the buildctl client. | A sandbox includes a Sentry application kernel that handles system calls and a Gofer process that mediates filesystem access. |
| Purpose | BuildKit is a toolkit for converting source code to build artifacts in an efficient, expressive and repeatable manner. | gVisor is an open-source Linux-compatible sandbox and application kernel that isolates containers from the host operating system. |
| Security reporting | Security issues should be reported privately to [email protected], and the project currently does not offer a paid security bounty program. | 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 | The project directs users to the #buildkit channel on Docker Community Slack and to GitHub issues for reporting problems with release binaries. | The project directs users to GitHub issues, documentation, and mailing lists for support and community discussion. |
Plans
In their own words
BuildKit
BuildKit is a free toolkit for turning source code into build artifacts. It consists of the buildkitd daemon and buildctl client, and uses LLB, a binary format for describing process dependency graphs. Builds can use Dockerfiles or other LLB-compatible frontends, resolve dependencies concurrently, cache instructions, import and export caches, run nested jobs, and collect unused data automatically. BuildKit supports execution without root privileges and OCI (runc) or containerd workers. Results can be exported as images, local directories, tarballs, Docker tarballs, or OCI tarballs. Cache options include inline, registry, local-directory, and GitHub Actions backends; the README marks GitHub Actions, S3, and Azure Blob options experimental. The daemon provides a gRPC API over a Unix socket by default, with TCP sockets also supported. Binaries are available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. The unofficial Homebrew formula for macOS omits buildkitd; the project gives Lima in a Linux virtual machine as one way to run it. BuildKit is licensed under Apache-2.0.
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.