Adoption & Ecosystem
Who uses it
Each organisation below is cited. Adopters without a public source are omitted.
| Organisation | Use case | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Heroku (Salesforce) | Next-generation "Fir" platform adopts CNB by default for all apps; Heroku funds a dedicated maintainer team. | Heroku Fir |
| DigitalOcean | App Platform builds with CNB when no Dockerfile is present, detecting the language and building with buildpacks. | DigitalOcean docs |
| Greenhouse, Salesforce, VMware | Named as production users at the time of CNCF Incubation. | CNCF |
Adoption signals
Measured on buildpacks/pack via the GitHub API on 2026-06-24.
- Stars: 2,939
- Forks: 345
- Open issues: 169
- Contributors: about 164 (including anonymous)
- Repository created: 2018-06-25
The CNCF Incubation approval (2020-11-18) cited more than fifteen production users and committers from multiple organisations.
Ecosystem
- Reference projects:
buildpacks/lifecycle(build engine),buildpacks/spec(Buildpack, Platform, Distribution, and Image Extension APIs), andbuildpacks/rfcs(design process). - Buildpack providers: Paketo Buildpacks, Heroku CNB, and Google Cloud buildpacks. Builders and stacks ship as images such as
paketobuildpacks/builder-jammy-base. - Kubernetes integration: kpack drives the CNB lifecycle through CRDs; there are Tekton (
buildpacks/tekton-integration) and GitHub Actions (buildpacks/github-actions) integrations. - Platform integration: Heroku Fir, DigitalOcean App Platform, and Google Cloud.
Alternatives
| Alternative | Differs by |
|---|---|
| Dockerfile + BuildKit | Most general, but you write base-image patching, layer optimisation, and SBOM yourself. CNB has buildpacks do detection and dependency resolution, and can swap the base via rebase with no Dockerfile. |
| Google Jib | JVM-only and needs no Docker daemon. CNB is multi-language over a shared builder and stack contract. |
| ko | Go-only, very fast. CNB is language-agnostic. |
| kaniko | Builds a Dockerfile in-cluster without a daemon. CNB writes no Dockerfile; image extension uses kaniko internally as a separate concern. |
| OpenShift Source-to-Image | Similar source-to-image idea, but Red Hat and OpenShift oriented. CNB is broader on OCI standards, rebase, and a distributed buildpack ecosystem. |
| nixpacks (Railway) | Similar auto-detect UX but Nix-based and not the CNB specification. |
The core distinction is a vendor-neutral platform-to-buildpack contract plus OCI layer rebase: an OS patch lands across every app by rebasing the run image, and one builder handles many languages without a Dockerfile.
Sources
- TOC Approves Cloud Native Buildpacks from Sandbox to Incubation (CNCF)
- Planting New Platform Roots in Cloud Native with Fir (Heroku)
- How Maintaining Cloud Native Buildpacks Powers Platforms Like Heroku
- App Platform Buildpack References (DigitalOcean)
- Getting Started / How to Use Paketo Builders (Paketo Buildpacks)
- buildpacks/pack repository