ctr vs nerdctl vs crictl

There are various command line tools to work with containers. As part of this post, we will talk about below 3 tools which works with containers, images and different container runtimes.

ctr

• The CLI is designed to work with containerd for debugging & management.
• Talks directly to containerd socket for full access to containers & images.
• Supports image pull, container management, streaming logs.
• Included in containerd binary

# Containerd
apt install containerd.io
# CRI-O
apt install cri-o-tools

nerdctl

• nerdctl provides easy-to-use docker compatible CLI that runs entirely in userspace.
• Friendly UX for beginners starting with containers/Kubernetes.
• Translates Docker CLI commands to containerd API calls.
• Requires separate installation.
• Works with containerd.

# Containerd
apt install containerd.io

brew install nerdctl

crictl

• It is used for CRI compatible container runtimes.
• The tool is developed/maintained by k8s community.
• It is more focused on pods more than containers/images.
• crictl is included in the cri-tools package

# Containerd
apt install containerd.io
# CRI-O
apt install cri-o-tools