Apptainer
An open-source container platform, formerly Singularity, built for running applications on HPC clusters.
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1 more ways to get Apptainer
Package managers
- Homebrew
brew install apptainer
About Apptainer
Apptainer, previously called Singularity, builds and runs containers with a focus on high-performance computing and scientific work. Unprivileged users can run containers, privilege escalation inside a container is blocked, and users are the same inside and outside it.
Containers are stored in the single-file SIF format, which makes workloads easy to share, move and archive from workstations to clusters. Containers can be encrypted, secrets can come from Vault and similar tools, and existing Docker images can be imported.
Strengths
- Runs containers without root privileges
- Single-file SIF images are easy to share and archive
- Imports existing Docker images
- Supports encrypted containers
Limitations
- Aimed at HPC and scientific use rather than general desktop container management
- Command-line only
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The Apptainer contributors
- Platforms
- Command line
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Best suited for
- Researchers and HPC cluster users who need portable, reproducible containers
- Categories
- Container tools, Developer tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Apptainer
Compare allSoftware that can replace Apptainer for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Podman
Daemonless container engine with a Docker-compatible command line.
Podman also runs rootless containers without a daemon, but it targets general use with a Docker-compatible command line rather than HPC clusters and single-file SIF images.
Docker Engine
The container runtime that builds, packages and runs applications in Docker containers.
Docker Engine is the standard runtime for container images on servers, but it lacks Apptainer's HPC focus, single-file SIF images and encrypted containers.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Buildah
A command-line tool for building OCI container images without a running daemon.
Skopeo
A command-line tool for inspecting, copying and signing container images in remote registries.
gVisor
An application kernel that sandboxes containers to isolate them from the host Linux kernel.
Kata Containers
An open-source container runtime that runs each container inside a lightweight virtual machine for stronger isolation.
Sysbox
A container runtime that lets rootless containers run systemd, Docker and Kubernetes like virtual machines.
Kubernetes
An open-source system for automating deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications across machines.
