LXD vs youki

LXD is an open-source platform for managing system containers and virtual machines on Linux. It brings LXC-based containers and KVM-based virtual machines together, with images for many Linux distributions and Windows virtual machines. Management options include a command line, REST API, web UI and third-party tools; the same HTTP API supports local and remote access. An official web UI is available by default starting with LXD 5.21.0 LTS. Features include resource limits, scheduled and expiring snapshots, projects, hardware passthrough, live migration and advanced networking. Containers run unprivileged by default, and virtual machines support UEFI Secure Boot and vTPM. LXD can run from a laptop to a data-center deployment; documentation describes clusters of up to 50 servers with thousands of instances. LXD is free, with the open-source plan listed at free. Ubuntu Pro Personal is also free for up to five physical Ubuntu systems. Enterprise workstation and server subscriptions are $25 a year and $500 a year, respectively.

youki is a Linux container runtime written in Rust that implements the OCI runtime specification. It provides commands to create, start, list, inspect, and delete containers, and can run containers without root privileges. The project documents using it as a runtime with Docker and Podman, and reports passing containerd’s end-to-end test and adoption in several production environments. Building locally requires Rust edition 2024 and Linux kernel 5.3 or later; local builds are supported on Linux, with Vagrant environments and GitHub Codespaces available for trying it elsewhere. The project is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation sandbox project. youki is free under the Apache License, Version 2.0, which grants no-charge, royalty-free copyright and patent licenses subject to its terms. Security reports can be sent through GitHub Security Advisories or to the committers by email. The committers aim to triage reports and respond within seven days, though a fix may take longer.