Charliecloud vs Shifter
Charliecloud
charliecloud.ioShifter
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Charliecloud | Shifter |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Container Engines | 7.9 (#10) | 7.0 (#27) |
| License | Charliecloud is open source software distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. | The repository license permits redistribution and use in source and binary forms subject to stated conditions and disclaimers. |
| Purpose | Charliecloud is a lightweight, fully unprivileged, open source container implementation for high performance computing applications. | Shifter enables HPC systems to run end-user container images, including Docker images. |
| Support | Users can report bugs or request features through the GitLab project and can get usage help through mailing lists and chat channels. | The project README directs users to its Google Groups email list for updates and community support. |
Plans
In their own words
Charliecloud
Charliecloud is free, open-source container software for high-performance computing on Linux. It runs containers without privileged operations or daemons by using Linux user namespaces, with minimal configuration changes on computing-center resources. Users can build images, push and pull them to registries, and use accelerators such as GPUs. Its layer-free build cache is based on Git rather than union-mount filesystems and tarballs, and Dockerfiles are parsed with a formal grammar. The ch-image tool supports registry authentication and registries including GitLab Container Registry. At runtime, ch-run can inject host resources through the Container Device Interface, including NVIDIA GPUs and Cray networking. Installation is available from a release tarball, Git checkout, Spack, or Fedora/EPEL. Charliecloud requires Linux user namespaces and has been run on x86-64, ARM, and Power; current testing covers x86_64 and ARM. It is distributed under Apache License, Version 2.0. The project supports only the current release and provides no internal security boundary.