crictl vs ctr

Last Updated: 2023-08-20

TL;DR: ctr is containerd specific; crictl is kubeneretes related, for any container runtime.

• ctr is the CLI of containerd.
  • ctr -v for containerd version.
• crictl is the CLI of CRI (Container Runtime Interface)
  • kubernetes uses crictl
  • for any CRI compliant runtime, e.g. docker, containerd, podman; kubernetes does not care which runtime it is.
  • crictl -v for kubernetes version.