BuildKit vs rules_img
BuildKit
github.comrules_img
github.comSide by side
| Figure | BuildKit | rules_img |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Container Build Tools | 8.9 (#4) | 7.0 (#31) |
| License | BuildKit is distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0, which grants perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free copyright rights subject to the license terms. | The repository identifies its license as Apache-2.0. |
| Purpose | BuildKit is a toolkit for converting source code to build artifacts in an efficient, expressive and repeatable manner. | rules_img provides Bazel rules for building OCI container images with performance optimizations. |
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.