runit vs s6
runit
smarden.orgs6
skarnet.orgSide by side
| Figure | runit | s6 |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Process Monitoring Software | 8.2 (#5) | 7.2 (#23) |
| Logging | runsv can supervise a separate logging process and connect the service output to it without requiring both processes to restart together. | Its utilities include s6-log and tools for syslog-like functionality. |
| Purpose | runit is a cross-platform Unix init scheme with service supervision and a replacement for sysvinit and other init schemes. | s6 is a small suite of UNIX programs for process supervision and low-level administration of processes and services. |
| Service control | The sv program reports service status and supports commands to start, stop, restart, pause and signal supervised services. | Its supervision system maintains a supervision tree and provides tools to control processes and monitor service states. |
Plans
In their own words
runit
runit is a free Unix init scheme that supervises services and can replace sysvinit or other init schemes. It runs on GNU/Linux, BSD systems, MacOSX and Solaris, and can be adapted to other Unix operating systems. As process 1, it manages boot, normal operation and shutdown in three stages. The runsv component launches a service's run program and restarts it if it exits; an optional finish program and log service can also be used. The sv utility reports status and provides controls to start, stop, restart, pause or signal supervised services. For logs, svlogd can filter messages and write automatically rotated logs. The chpst utility changes process state and sets limits for resources such as memory, open files, process count, output size, core size and CPU time. runsvdir can start and monitor runsv processes for up to 1,000 service subdirectories. runit can supervise services alongside an existing init scheme without replacing it. The maker provides source and installation instructions, including manual installation without root access. Its documentation warns that UDP logging is unreliable and should be confined to private networks.