cloudron-minibase : lightweight alternative Cloudron-compatible base image

A 90mb base image for packaging apps that do not need the full runtime stack bundled into cloudron/base (approx 2.3Gb), built from the official image without language components and tools.

FROM tcmbp132021/cloudron-minibase:ubuntu24.04@sha256:2120394f694869a878afcc29e19e368bed0a4f66b25bb322401a53f6a59d7965

This is the published linux/amd64 image digest to pin in Dockerfile FROM.

A new version will be available when cloudron/base starts to use Ubuntu 26.04.

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Introduction

Why use this instead of the official cloudron/base?

The official cloudron/base is still the easiest choice when you want a lot of runtimes and tools ready to go. This image is for a different tradeoff.

The main reason to use cloudron-minibase is not runtime performance. Docker layer sharing means the large official base image often has little impact once layers are already present on the server.

The advantage here is around build time, pull/push time, and keeping app images simpler when they only need one specific runtime.

Additionally the attack surface is much smaller, so less CVs, because the inherited toolchain is much smaller.

What is In / Out

What is Included

Core Utilities: bash, curl, wget, tar, gzip, unzip, jq, rsync, sed, gawk, grep, findutils, coreutils, less, procps, iproute2, net-tools, iputils-ping, sudo.
Process Management: tini (for proper PID 1 signal handling) and supervisor (for managing multiple processes).
Configuration Tools: yq and crudini.
Web & Networking: nginx-full.
Development Libraries: libssl-dev, libpq-dev (for secure communication and database connectivity).
System Essentials: gosu, ca-certificates, locales, tzdata
Ubuntu 24.04

What is Excluded

Build Tools: build-essential, gcc, g++. Rationale: These are for compilation, not execution. Developers should use Multi-Stage builds to compile dependencies and only ship the final binaries/artifacts.
Media Processing: ImageMagick, GraphicsMagick. Rationale: These are massive libraries. They should only be included if the specific application requires them to avoid unnecessary bloat.
Version Control: git. Rationale: Not required for production runtime.
Text Editors: vim. Rationale: For security and to minimize the attack surface.
Standalone DB Clients: mysql-client, psql, redis-tools. Rationale: Modern applications use language-specific drivers (e.g., pg, mysql2, redis) which do not require these standalone binaries.

When to use

Use cloudron-minibase when

your app only needs one specific runtime
you want faster builds and smaller image pulls/pushes
you want a tighter dependency surface
you prefer each Dockerfile to declare its own runtime explicitly

Use cloudron/base when

you want maximum convenience with runtimes and tools ready to go
you expect to use the bundled runtimes (Node.js, Python, PHP, Ruby, Go, Java)
you need nginx, Apache, supervisor, or database CLI clients
build time and image simplicity are not primary concerns

Conclusion

Typical Use

Start from the pinned base image, then install your app runtime yourself.

FROM tcmbp132021/cloudron-minibase:ubuntu24.04@sha256:2120394f694869a878afcc29e19e368bed0a4f66b25bb322401a53f6a59d7965

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
python3 \
python3-pip \
&& rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

WORKDIR /app/code
COPY . .
COPY start.sh /app/code/start.sh
RUN chmod +x /app/code/start.sh

CMD ["/app/code/start.sh"]

Cloudron platform features still work as usual: reverse proxying, TLS, health checks, backups of /app/data, addon credentials, and the web terminal.