containerd (Default)

Lima comes with the built-in integration for containerd and nerdctl (contaiNERD CTL):

lima nerdctl run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

nerdctl.lima run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

If you have installed Lima by make install, the nerdctl.lima command is also available as nerdctl.
If you have installed Lima by brew install lima, you may make an alias (or a symlink) by yourself: alias nerdctl=nerdctl.lima

limactl start --containerd=system
lima sudo nerdctl run -d --name nginx -p 127.0.0.1:8080:80 nginx:alpine

The usage of the nerdctl command is similar to the docker command. See the Command Reference.

Disabling containerd

To disable containerd, start an instance with --containerd=none:

limactl start --containerd=none