containerd stargz snapshotter

It lets a container start before every byte of its image has been downloaded. Required file chunks are fetched from the registry on demand, which can reduce startup time for large images.

Its lazy-pulling benefits require seekable stargz or eStargz-formatted layers and a compatible snapshotter installed on the host. A standard registry can store these OCI-compatible images, but an unconfigured runtime will treat them like ordinary layers.

Stargz is a seekable gzip-based archive format, while eStargz extends it with metadata and optimization for container image access patterns. The optimization can place files needed during startup where the snapshotter can fetch them efficiently.

Stargz, Nydus, and SOCI all aim to reduce image startup latency through lazy or on-demand loading. They use different image formats, indexing approaches, and runtime components, so the best choice depends on the registry, container runtime, and Kubernetes environment.