BuildKit vs Shipwright
BuildKit
github.comShipwright
shipwright.ioSide by side
| Figure | BuildKit | Shipwright |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Container Build Tools | 8.9 (#4) | 7.1 (#29) |
| Integrations | BuildKit documentation lists integrations or usage with Podman, nerdctl, Kubernetes, Docker buildx, GitHub Actions cache, S3 cache, Azure Blob Storage cache, and OpenTelemetry. | Installation requires Kubernetes 1.32 or later and Tekton Pipelines v0.68 or later. |
| Purpose | BuildKit is a toolkit for converting source code to build artifacts in an efficient, expressive and repeatable manner. | Shipwright is an extensible framework for building container images on Kubernetes. |
| 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 lists a user mailing list, developer mailing list, and Kubernetes Slack as community channels. |
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.
Shipwright
Shipwright has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.