Cloud Native Buildpacks Pack vs Jib

Cloud Native Buildpacks Pack is a free command-line tool for building applications with buildpacks and rebasing the resulting application images. It is maintained by the Cloud Native Buildpacks project and is also available as a Go library. Buildpacks turn application source code into container images that can run on any cloud. Listed capabilities include caching, automatic source detection, modular buildpacks, support for multiple languages and processes, minimal images, reproducible builds and reuse of community buildpacks. Pack supports multi-architecture builds and multiple build-cache backends, and the project lists build-time software bills of materials in CycloneDX, SPDX and Syft JSON formats. The CLI runs on Linux, macOS and Windows; installation options include package managers, container images, scripts and manual installation. Builds need a containerized environment and a daemon such as Docker or Podman, and some setups may need the local Docker socket mounted. The project documents CircleCI, GitLab Auto DevOps and Tekton integrations, as well as kpack for Kubernetes-native builds and image updates. Pack is Apache-2.0 licensed.

Jib builds Docker and OCI images for Java applications without a Docker daemon. It can be used as a Maven or Gradle plugin, a Java library, or a command-line interface, and runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Jib divides application contents into layers, allowing code changes to be rebuilt without rebuilding the whole image. It can push images to a container registry of the user's choice, uses an OpenJDK base image by default, and accepts a custom base image. The project says that rebuilding an image from the same contents produces the same image. It supports local build caches and multi-architecture builds, and the project says it works well with Google Cloud Build. Examples cover Spring Boot, Micronaut, multi-module projects, and Spark Java with a Java Agent. Jib is free and open source under Apache License, Version 2.0. The project is not an officially supported Google product; it directs usage questions to Stack Overflow and also links to GitHub issues and a FAQ.