macOS and Apple Container Technology¶

Linux containers need Linux kernel primitives. On macOS, Docker Desktop therefore uses a Linux VM to run Linux containers; the Docker client integrates with that VM rather than turning the macOS kernel into a Linux container kernel.

Apple’s open-source container tool creates and runs Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on Apple silicon and consumes/produces OCI-compatible images. Its Containerization package uses Virtualization.framework and places each Linux container in a lightweight VM. Apple documents macOS 26 and Apple silicon requirements, and the project has been actively evolving; confirm the current release documentation before adopting it for production. This is architecturally different from native Linux containers, which share the Linux host kernel. Apple container source and status and Apple Virtualization documentation provide the current primary references.