Podman and Podman Desktop join the CNCF at Sandbox level

2025-01-21 · Publisher : CNCF · Domain : Cloud & DevOps

On 21 January 2025, the CNCF accepts Podman Container Tools (Podman, Buildah, Skopeo) and Podman Desktop at Sandbox level: Red Hat's daemonless container tools move under neutral governance.

### What changes On 21 January 2025, the CNCF accepts two Podman-related projects at the **Sandbox** level: **Podman Container Tools**, which bundles Podman, Buildah and Skopeo, and **Podman Desktop**. The CNCF describes the first as a set of tools for full container and image lifecycle management without a daemon or root privileges, and the second as a graphical interface for working with containers and Kubernetes. ### Key facts - Podman Container Tools: Podman (containers), Buildah (image building) and Skopeo (image copying and inspection), all daemonless and rootless, per the CNCF. - Podman Desktop: an open source graphical tool to build, manage and deploy containers and Kubernetes; its first commit dates from 8 March 2022 (CNCF page). - Sandbox is the CNCF's entry level, meant for experimental projects: it is not yet proof of production maturity. - Thirteen projects join the CNCF that month, including bootc, composefs, k0s, SpinKube, CloudNativePG and Drasi (Palark's tally). - Palark describes Podman Desktop as a free, open source alternative to Docker Desktop, with Kind and Minikube integrations. ### Why it matters For CIOs reconsidering their dependency on Docker Desktop, Podman Desktop is the most visible alternative. Its arrival at the CNCF lowers single-vendor risk, but the Sandbox level calls for caution: features, support and roadmap still need qualifying before an enterprise-wide rollout. ### Takeaway Podman-family daemonless container tools move under CNCF governance, at the Sandbox entry level.

Tags : Conteneurs, Open Source, Cloud natif, Kubernetes