gVisor vs runc
gVisor
gvisor.devrunc
github.comSide by side
| Figure | gVisor | runc |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Container Engines | 8.3 (#6) | 6.6 (#29) |
| Spec score · Container Runtime Software | 8.3 (#7) | 6.6 (#26) |
| Checkpoint and restore | gVisor can checkpoint and restore containers for uses such as caching warmed services, resuming workloads on other machines, and saving state for forensics. | runc supports checkpoint and restore unless built with the runc_nocriu tag, which disables that feature. |
| Purpose | gVisor is an open-source Linux-compatible sandbox and application kernel that isolates containers from the host operating system. | runc is a command-line tool for spawning and running containers on Linux according to the OCI specification. |
| Security reporting | 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. | The OCI security policy directs vulnerability reports to [email protected] rather than GitHub issues or pull requests. |
Plans
In their own words
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.