Container lifecycle, three engines
alpine → true → exit → removed. p50 of 30 runs, p99 alongside. Milliseconds on a linear scale, so bar length is the time; lower is better.
Kiri Benchmarks
Numbers, with their labels on.
The container lifecycle is measured on all three engines, on one machine, with the fairness notes beside it. Kiri's other container operations are still targets: design budgets we hold ourselves to, not results. Every figure says which it is.
Kiri, measured
Kiri, target (not yet measured)
Docker Desktop, measured
OrbStack, measured
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bench/results.json…Other container operations
OrbStack measured against Kiri targets. Milliseconds, lower is better, one linear scale. Docker Desktop has not been measured for these yet.
Engine memory
Megabytes resident, lower is better. Docker Desktop has not been measured for these yet.
Where container-start time goes
The kernel work underneath a container start, measured inside a Linux 7.2 VM.
| Operation | Time | Relative time |
|---|
Method and machine
- Machine
- Apple Silicon Mac
- OrbStack
- OrbStack with the Docker CLI
- Last updated
- 2026
- Status key
- measured = measured on this machine; target = design budget
Both runtimes are timed on the same machine. Kiri's lifecycle and memory targets will be replaced with measurements, on that machine, once the daemon runs containers end to end. Until then the chart draws them hatched and labels them "target".
This page renders straight from bench/results.json. Change the file and the page changes with it.
All figures as a table
| Runtime | Metric | Value | Status |
|---|
Want the short version? The race and the headline numbers are on the home page.
Download Kiri 0.1.0