opencontainers/runc
CLI tool for spawning and running containers according to the OCI specification observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
97/100
- Activity 99
- Release rhythm 93
- Longevity 100
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 22
- age_days: 4107
- days_rel: 51
- days_push: 9
- n_releases_24m: 24
Adoption not part of the score
13415 stars · 2325 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
runc is a command-line tool for spawning and running containers on Linux according to the Open Container Initiative (OCI) runtime specification. It is the low-level default runtime used by container engines like Docker and containerd to create and manage container processes from OCI filesystem bundles.
Use cases
- run containers from an OCI bundle on linux
- understand how docker runs containers under the hood
- build a custom container runtime or container platform
- test OCI runtime spec compliance
- run containers without a full container engine
- debug container namespaces and cgroups
When to choose
- you need a spec-compliant low-level OCI container runtime
- you are building a container engine, orchestrator, or sandboxing tool
- you want to run containers without Docker or Podman
- you need fine-grained control over namespaces, cgroups, and seccomp profiles
When to avoid
- you want a user-friendly container workflow with image pulls and builds - use Docker or Podman instead
- you need to orchestrate containers at scale - use Kubernetes or a higher-level runtime
- you are not on Linux - runc only supports Linux
Facets
cli-tool · maturity stable
container-runtime cli security developer-tools cloud-computing developer-tools go cli oci container-runtime low-level docker kubernetes namespaces cgroups seccomp containers devops linux
7 sources
- readme: https://github.com/opencontainers/runc · fetched 2026-08-28 · ecd4e282732d
- homepage: https://www.opencontainers.org/ · fetched 2026-08-29 · cede10152191
- site_page: https://opencontainers.org/about/overview · fetched 2026-08-29 · 4a3bc773c315
- site_page: https://opencontainers.org/about/tob · fetched 2026-08-29 · c919f71c4f62
- site_page: https://opencontainers.org/about/security-disclosure · fetched 2026-08-29 · e6b2016f31a1
- site_page: https://opencontainers.org/faq · fetched 2026-08-29 · bdc269126fc3
- site_page: https://opencontainers.org/posts/blog/2024-03-13-image-and-distribution-1-1 · fetched 2026-08-29 · a0490c1d9e9f
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| opencontainers/runc | main | 97 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="opencontainers/runc")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem