🧠 What Is a Container Runtime?

A container runtime is a program that runs containers.

You can think of it as:

🛠️ A “mini OS manager” that launches, stops, and watches containers.

🧰 Popular Container Runtimes

• containerd (used by Kubernetes under the hood)
• Docker (used directly or inside containerd)
• CRI-O (used in OpenShift)

✅ What the Container Runtime Does

The container runtime handles:

• 📦 Starting/stopping containers
• 💾 Giving containers access to filesystems (your app's files)
• 🧠 Giving CPU, memory, and network
• 🔥 Capturing logs (stdout/stderr) from your app

🧠 Analogy: TV and the Show

• 🖥️ Your app is the TV show
• ⚙️ The container runtime is the TV that plays it