7 Open Source Container and Microservices Projects to Watch
![7 Open Source Container and Microservices Projects to Watch 7 Open Source Container and Microservices Projects to Watch](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltcfb933126eeb2b7a/652469660dd71f7f0b8187a1/GettyImages-513845534_0.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
As the container ecosystem diversifies, the Open Container Initiative aims to keep different solutions compatible by promoting open standards. Organized by the Linux Foundation, it receives support from a number of industry partners.
Tectonic is CoreOS's commercial container offering. It combines the CoreOS operating system with the company's container solution, Rocket, as well as Kubernetes for orchestration. There have so far been no signs of widespread Tectonic adoption, but for companies seeking an out-of-the-box container solution — or an alternative to Docker — Tectonic will appeal.
LXD is Canonical's answer to the security challenges that the container world currently faces. The company's idea is to pair hardware-assisted security features with containers in order to deliver "the full experience of virtual machines and the full security of a hypervisor, but much, much faster," the company says. LXD currently remains under heavy development, and is designed for Ubuntu Linux, Canonical's open source OS.
Unikernels, which were recently acquired by Docker, are a building block for microservice-based environments. They let DevOps teams take the minimum bits of software libraries needed to make a particular app run, then integrate them into a portable, platform-agnostic package. The result is apps that are even more flexible and efficient than containers. Unikernels are not yet ready for production, but they're on the way.
Kubernetes (which is named after a Greek word for helmsman, in case you're wondering) originated from Google's Borg platform. Backed by Google and the Linux Foundation, it's a leading open source cluster manager for containers. It competes with the likes of Swarm, Docker's home-grown cluster management solution.
Swarm is Docker's native container orchestration tool. The company has started pushing it hard, claiming Swarm outperforms the competition.
CoreOS recently released Clair 1.0, the production version of its container scanner. Designed to check containers for security vulnerabilities and fix them automatically, Clair addresses an important obstacle — app security — that previously stunted enterprise container adoption.
CoreOS recently released Clair 1.0, the production version of its container scanner. Designed to check containers for security vulnerabilities and fix them automatically, Clair addresses an important obstacle — app security — that previously stunted enterprise container adoption.
Containers — and their cousins, microservices — are finally entering production environments in the enterprise, where they give organizations more flexible ways to deploy applications in the cloud. As the container and microservices ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, these are projects to watch.
About the Author(s)
You May Also Like