Directory Cloud InfrastructureContainers & KubernetesiSulad

iSulad

About iSulad

iSulad is a lightweight container engine written in C/C++. It supports multiple container runtimes, including lxc, runc, and kata. It supports multiple image formats, including OCI and external rootfs. It provides two interfaces for image and container management: CLI and CRI. It can be integrated with Kubernetes through the CRI interface.

Used for

Starting secure containers with lightweight virtual machines
Pulling images and running containers from remote image repositories
Preparing a bootable root fs directory for system container scenarios
Listing all containers in an environment

From iSulad's own website, read 2026-10-23. How we build listings.

How to evaluate Containers & Kubernetes

This is how the CIOPages Research Team evaluates this category. It is not an assessment of iSulad. It comes from our Kubernetes Platforms buyer guide.

25%

Control Plane & Day-2 Lifecycle

Managed vs. self-managed control plane and its SLA; how Kubernetes version upgrades roll (in-place, surge, blue-green) and how disruptive they are to running pods; long-term-support version options; CVE patch cadence and how quickly fixes reach the fleet; automated node remediation and certificate rotation

20%

Fleet & Multi-Cluster Management

Single console and API to govern many clusters across clouds, on-prem, and edge; declarative cluster lifecycle and config (Cluster API or equivalent); fleet-wide policy and drift detection; zero-touch provisioning for edge; whether it manages clusters it did not create (imported/attached) or only its own

20%

Security & Compliance

Default-deny posture and admission control (Pod Security, OPA/Kyverno); image scanning and signing in the supply chain; RBAC plus OIDC/enterprise-identity integration; network policy and microsegmentation; CIS-benchmark conformance, audit logging, and FedRAMP/FIPS coverage where regulated

15%

Networking, Storage & Service Mesh

CNI options and how locked-in the default is; ingress and gateway controllers with TLS, rate-limiting, and WAF; CSI drivers for block/file/object and stateful-workload maturity; service mesh integration (Istio, Linkerd, Cilium); cross-cluster connectivity and load balancing

10%

Developer Experience & Self-Service

Namespace and cluster self-service vs. ticket-based provisioning; GitOps support (Argo CD, Flux) as a first-class workflow; developer portal and golden-path integration (Backstage or built-in console); IDE plugins and local-dev parity; how opinionated the platform is about how teams ship

10%

Cost, Portability & Commercial Model

Licensing unit (per-core, per-node, per-cluster, consumption) and how it scales with you; control-plane and extended-support fees; realistic exit cost and how provider-shaped the abstractions are; GPU/AI scheduling support; ecosystem breadth (operators, Helm, marketplace) and how much you must self-integrate

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AKS Engine for Azure Stack

Accordion

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Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)

Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (EKS)

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