System Requirements
Supported platforms
| Platform | Supported |
|---|---|
| Linux (x86-64, arm64) | yes |
| macOS (Intel, Apple Silicon) | yes |
| Windows | via WSL2 |
Container runtime
boks requires one of these container runtimes:
| Runtime | Linux | macOS | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Podman | yes | yes | Recommended |
| Docker | yes | yes | Automatic fallback when Podman is absent, or --runtime docker |
Podman
Podman runs containers without a background daemon and without root privileges. It is the default runtime for boks and is available on most Linux distributions and on macOS via Podman Desktop.
Docker
Docker Engine and Docker Desktop both work. boks uses Docker automatically when Podman is not installed; force it with --runtime docker or runtime = "docker" in the config.
Disk space
A minimal install requires roughly 30 MB for the boks binary. Container images are stored by the container runtime and vary by tool — a typical image is 50–500 MB. Images are shared across runs, so pulling an image once is enough.