Containers which offer an environment as close as possible as the one you'd get from a VM but without the overhead that comes with running a separate kernel and simulating all the hardware.

The best Virtualization alternative to Docker is Linux Containers (LXC), which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 25 alternatives to Docker and 11 are Virtualization Tools so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Virtualization Tool alternatives to Docker are Distrobox, OrbStack, rkt and containerd.
Containers which offer an environment as close as possible as the one you'd get from a VM but without the overhead that comes with running a separate kernel and simulating all the hardware.

Use any Linux distribution inside your terminal. Enable both backward and forward compatibility with software and freedom to use whatever distribution you’re more comfortable with. Distrobox uses podman or docker to create containers using the Linux distribution of your choice.

OrbStack is an alternative to Docker Desktop for macOS, designed to offer improved performance for Docker and virtual machines on Linux running on Mac computers. It addresses performance issues that have been experienced in the past, particularly on models with Apple Silicon.

rkt is the next-generation container manager for Linux clusters. Designed for security, simplicity, and composability within modern cluster architectures, rkt discovers, verifies, fetches, and executes application containers with pluggable isolation.
An industry-standard container runtime with an emphasis on simplicity, robustness and portability
OpenVZ is container-based virtualization for Linux.
OpenVZ creates multiple secure, isolated Linux containers (otherwise known as VEs or VPSs) on a single physical server enabling better server utilization and ensuring that applications do not conflict.
Each container performs.

Apache Mesos is a cluster manager that simplifies the complexity of running applications on a shared pool of servers.

The FreeBSD jail mechanism is an implementation of operating system-level virtualization that allows system administrators to partition a FreeBSD-based computer system into several independent mini-systems called jails.


Chaperone is a lightweight alternative to process environment managers like systemd or upstart. Chaperone provides an extensive feature set, including dependency-based startup, syslog logging, zombie harvesting, and job scheduling.
Great tools and documentation, they have been around for much longer than docker and are a more mature solution.