Overview

Alpine Linux is a security-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution built around musl libc and BusyBox instead of glibc and GNU Core Utilities. Its minimal base image is around 5 MB, making it extremely popular for containerised environments including Docker. Alpine compiles all user-space binaries as position-independent executables with stack-smashing protection for enhanced security.

Key Features

• musl libc + BusyBox: Lightweight C library and multi-call binary replacing glibc and GNU coreutils for a tiny footprint
• APK Package Manager: Fast, simple Alpine Package Keeper (apk) with dependency resolution and parallel downloads
• Container Standard: The default base image for millions of Docker containers; official images are under 5 MB uncompressed
• OpenRC Init: Uses OpenRC instead of systemd, providing a simple, dependency-based init system with parallel service startup

Platforms

x86, x86-64, ARMhf, ARMv7, AArch64, ppc64le, s390x, riscv64, LoongArch

Licence

GPL and various free software licenses

Website

alpinelinux.org