Apple Containerization · Native macOS

Containers on
Apple Silicon.

The Docker Desktop replacement for macOS. Native SwiftUI. Hardware-level isolation. Sub-second boot. Open source forever.

macOS 26+ Tahoe M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 Apache 2.0

Download for Mac ↓ See features →

Universal disk image · Signed & notarized · Auto-updating

Fig. 01 — Container list, Keg for macOS SwiftUI · Virtualization.framework

Keg

Name	Image	Status	ID	Ports	CPU	Memory
web-frontend	nginx:latest	Running	a1b2c3d4e5f6	8080:80	0.3%	24 MB
api-server	node:20-alpine	Running	b2c3d4e5f6a1	3000:3000	1.2%	85 MB
postgres-db	postgres:16-alpine	Running	c3d4e5f6a1b2	5432:5432	0.1%	42 MB
redis-cache	redis:7-alpine	Running	d4e5f6a1b2c3	6379:6379	0.0%	12 MB
worker-queue	alpine:3.20	Stopped	e5f6a1b2c3d4
build-runner	alpine:latest	Created	f6a1b2c3d4e5

618ms

Container Start

55ms

Exec Latency

69MB

Idle Memory

341

Tests Passing

Everything you need.

Containers, images, networks, volumes, builds, Compose, Kubernetes. All native. All fast.

No. 01Boot

Sub-second Boot

618ms average container start. No daemon warmup, no shared VM spin-up. Each container boots its own micro-VM in under a second — 50× faster than Docker Desktop's cold start.

No. 02Isolation

Hardware Isolation

Per-container VMs via Virtualization.framework. Real hardware boundaries, not namespace tricks.

No. 03Footprint

69MB Idle

Docker Desktop idles at 500MB to 2GB. Keg gives you your RAM back.

No. 04Compat

Docker API

Full Engine API on a Unix socket. docker ps, docker run, docker compose. It all works.

No. 05Cluster

Kubernetes

One-click K8s cluster. kindest/node + kubeadm. kubectl ready in 90 seconds.

No. 06License

Open Source

Apache 2.0, free forever. No seat licenses, no feature gates, no telemetry.

Drop-in replacement.

Same CLI. Same Compose files. Same API. Just faster, lighter, and with real isolation.

Native CLIListing 01

# Run containers $ container run -d --name web -p 8080:80 nginx web # View logs $ container logs web "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 # Exec into container $ container exec web cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf worker_processes auto;

Docker CLI via KegListing 02

# Point Docker at Keg $ export DOCKER_HOST=unix://$HOME/.keg/docker.sock $ docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE STATUS PORTS a1b2c3d4e5f6 nginx Up 2m 0.0.0.0:8080->80 $ docker info Server: Keg (Apple Containerization)

Your compose files. Zero changes.

Dependency ordering, networks, volumes, port mapping, env vars. Keg's orchestrator handles it all.

docker-compose.ymlListing 03

services: web: image: nginx:latest ports: ["8080:80"] depends_on: [api] api: image: node:20-alpine environment: - DATABASE_URL=postgres://db/app depends_on: [db] db: image: postgres:16-alpine volumes: [pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data] volumes: pgdata:

LifecycleListing 04

$ keg compose up -d Compose up: my-app ==> Service: db ==> Service: api ==> Service: web Compose up finished. $ keg compose ps NAME SERVICE STATE my-app-db db running my-app-api api running my-app-web web running $ keg compose down

Local K8s. 90 seconds.

Full cluster inside an Apple Container. kubeadm, CNI, kubeconfig. Ready for kubectl.

Create Cluster

One click in Keg. kindest/node boots with kubeadm init.

kubectl get nodes NAME STATUS ROLES keg-k8s Ready control-plane

Deploy

Apply manifests. Deployments, services, configmaps, secrets.

kubectl apply -f deploy.yaml kubectl get pods nginx-abc12 1/1 Running

Scale & Update

Scale replicas, rolling updates, exec, logs. Full kubectl.

kubectl scale deploy nginx --replicas=3 kubectl set image deploy/nginx ... kubectl logs -f deploy/nginx

Numbers don't lie.

Benchmarked against Docker Desktop and OrbStack.

	Docker Desktop	OrbStack	Keg
Runtime	containerd in Linux VM	containerd in Linux VM	Apple VMs
Isolation	Process-level	Process-level	Hardware
Boot time	~30s	~2s	<1s
Idle RAM	~2 GB	~500 MB	69 MB
Docker API	✓	✓	✓
Kubernetes	✓	✓	✓
Native macOS	Electron	Native-ish	SwiftUI
License	$9/seat/mo	Paid	Apache 2.0

Built for Apple Silicon.
Open source, free forever.

Requires macOS 26 (Tahoe) and Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4).

Download for Mac ↓ View on GitHub →

Containers onApple Silicon.