Alpine Linux
| Developer | Alpine Linux development team |
|---|---|
| OS family | Linux (Unix-like) |
| Working state | Active |
| Source model | Open source |
| Initial release | August 2005 |
| Latest release | 3.22.0 / 30 May 2025 |
| Repository | |
| Marketing target | General-purpose. Security, embedded systems and other resource-constrained systems, such as containers. |
| Available in | Multilingual |
| Package manager | APK (Alpine Package Keeper) |
| Platforms | |
| Kernel type | Monolithic (Linux) |
| Userland | BusyBox |
| Default user interface | Ash |
| Official website | alpinelinux |
Alpine Linux is a Linux distribution designed to be small, simple, and secure. It uses musl, BusyBox, and OpenRC instead of the more commonly used glibc, GNU Core Utilities, and systemd. This makes Alpine one of few Linux distributions not to be based on the GNU Core Utilities or glibc.
For security, Alpine compiles all user-space binaries as position-independent executables with stack-smashing protection.
Because of its small size and rapid startup, it is commonly used in containers providing quick boot-up times, on virtual machines as well as on real hardware in embedded devices, such as routers, servers and NAS.