Adoption & Ecosystem
Who uses it
The repository maintains an ADOPTERS.md file split into direct adopters and indirect adopters via ostree. The table below lists only the direct adopters it records, each citing the website that file points to.
| Organisation | Use case | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Red Hat | Image Based Linux; bootc is the path for new RHEL images | ADOPTERS.md:10 |
| HeliumOS | An atomic desktop operating system | ADOPTERS.md:11 |
| AlmaLinux (Atomic SIG) | Atomic desktop and workstation respins | ADOPTERS.md:12 |
| Caligra (Workbench) | An OS to accelerate knowledge work | ADOPTERS.md:13 |
| CIQ | Rocky Linux from CIQ, Image Based Linux variants | ADOPTERS.md:14 |
| Universal Blue (Aurora/Bazzite/Bluefin) | Reliable, flexible Linux desktop images | ADOPTERS.md:15 |
ADOPTERS.md also lists indirect adopters via ostree (Endless, Fedora Project atomic desktops, Apertis, Playtron GameOS, Fyra Labs) and notes that not every one of these uses bootc directly today; carrying these users forward is a stated goal of the project (ADOPTERS.md:23-24).
Adoption signals
Measured from the repository on 2026-06-26: roughly 2,134 stars, 204 forks, and around 94 contributors. The latest release at the documented commit is v1.16.2, with the workspace version pinned to 1.16.2 (crates/lib/Cargo.toml:9). The project was accepted into the CNCF Sandbox on 2025-01-21 (CNCF project page). Releases are frequent; the README documents that the CLI and API are considered stable with an in-place upgrade guarantee (README.md:22-23).
Ecosystem
- composefs: a sibling Red Hat project, proposed to the CNCF Sandbox in the same batch, used as a bootc backing store (
crates/lib/src/bootc_composefs/). - bootupd: the external bootloader manager that
bootc installinvokes to set up the bootloader (docs/src/bootc-install.md). - Image builders: standard
Containerfile/Dockerfilebuilds withpodman,buildah, ordocker, plus external installers such as Anaconda and bootc-image-builder (docs/src/bootc-install.md). - ostree and rpm-ostree: the predecessors bootc is designed to succeed.
Alternatives
| Alternative | Differs by |
|---|---|
| rpm-ostree | Hybrid image-plus-package model that layers RPMs on a base commit; bootc treats the whole OS as one OCI image and is positioned as its successor. |
| ostree (libostree) | The lower-level versioned-filesystem engine bootc still builds on; bootc adds the OCI-native, declarative interface on top. |
| Package managers (apt/dnf, transactional-update/snapper) | Per-package upgrades on a mutable root; bootc replaces the entire /usr atomically from a registry image with a rollback slot. |
| NixOS | Also image-like and atomic, but uses its own store and language; bootc prioritises compatibility with the existing OCI/Docker ecosystem. |
Choose bootc when you already ship containers and want the host OS in the same pipeline with registry-tag-driven updates. Choose a traditional package manager when you need to mutate the running system package by package, or NixOS when you want its declarative store model over OCI compatibility.