Kata Containers vs gVisor?
From what I gather:
Kata Containers
- Full Kernel on top of a lightweight QEMU/KVM VM
- Kernel has been optimized in newer releases.
- Lets system calls go through freely
- Performance penalty due to the VM layer. Not clear yet how slower or faster than gVisor
- On paper, slower startup time.
- Can run any application.
- Can run in nested virtualized environments if the hypervisor and hardware support it.
gVisor
- Partial Kernel in userspace.
- Intercepts syscalls
- Performance penalty at runtime due to syscall filtering. Not clear how slower or faster than Kata yet.
- On paper, faster startup time.
- Can run only applications that use supported system calls.
- On paper, you may not need nested virtualization.
Here's a simple explanation
Kata Containers
Some kind of Containers which run on Hardware.
Traditional Virtual Machines are secure but not as fast as Containers. Kata Containers Project is like a Virtual Machine as lightweight as a Container. In other words, Kata Containers solved the low speed problem of VMs.
gVisor
Containers running inside a sandbox named gVisor (there's a sandbox per container)
Containers are fast but not as secure as Virtual Machines. gVisor is something like a sandbox and every container should run inside one sandbox. In other words, gVisor solved the security problem of Containers.