Sylabs

What Sylabs does

Sylabs, a privately held Delaware-incorporated company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Reno, Nevada, develops and commercializes the Singularity container runtime, purpose-built for high-performance computing and performance-intensive workloads. The platform is built around the Singularity Image Format (SIF), a single-file container format that integrates signing, verification, encryption (LUKS2), and OCI compliance, and is implemented primarily in Go. The product portfolio spans four tiers: SingularityCE (open-source community edition distributed via GitHub), SingularityPRO (commercially supported build with security patches delivered ahead of public CVE disclosure), Singularity Enterprise (on-premise platform bundling an OCI registry, remote builder, keyserver, and Velero-based disaster recovery), and Singularity Container Services (a freemium cloud platform at cloud.sylabs.io offering library, remote builder, and keystore). SingularityCE 4.x introduced an OCI-mode that uses runc/crun as the low-level runtime and the OCI-SIF hybrid format, extending interoperability with mainstream OCI tooling while preserving SIF portability.

The company monetizes primarily through annual node-based (SingularityPRO) and site-based (Singularity Enterprise) subscription licenses sold via direct enterprise field sales, supplemented by paid tiers of the cloud-hosted Container Services platform and professional support services. Go-to-market is hybrid: enterprise sales target HPC centers, national laboratories, and large research institutions (named customers include RIKEN/Fugaku, SDSC, Sandia National Laboratories, Oak Ridge, University of Florida, University of Kentucky, University of Arizona), while an open-source community motion and academic curriculum (Singularity Containers 101) drive bottom-up adoption. Primary use cases are research computing, AI/ML workloads (with native GPU and MPI support), bioinformatics, edge security hardening, and confidential computing for regulated workloads. Strategic technology partnerships with Sandia (confidential computing co-development), NVIDIA (GPU container integration), and Arm (architecture support) anchor the technical ecosystem.

Operations are lean at 11-50 employees, with revenue, funding history, and ownership not publicly disclosed. The company operates as an independent private entity with no identified parent or institutional investor references in the available data. Chief Technology Officer Adam Hughes is the publicly identified technical leader and a visible spokesperson for the confidential computing and container security roadmap.

Name

Sylabs

Legal name

SYLABS, INC.

Website

https://sylabs.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Sylabs develops and commercializes the Singularity container runtime and Singularity Image Format for high-performance computing, serving HPC centers, national laboratories, universities, and research institutions through commercial licensing, an open-source community edition, and cloud-hosted container services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Container Runtime Software

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Server Operating Systems & Hypervisors (Virtualization) (HDABADAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Virtualization, Containers & Kubernetes Security (EDAOAIAO), DevSecOps & Supply Chain Security (DevOps toolchain security) (BPAEAKAI), Confidential AI & Privacy-Preserving ML (federated learning, MPC, HE, TEEs) (HDAAAKAI)

Keywords

• Container runtime software
• High performance computing
• HPC containerization
• Enterprise container platform
• Linux container technology

Headquarters

HQ city

Albany

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. SingularityPRO Licensing: Node-based license model for commercial container runtime software. Provides enterprise support, security patches, and long-term support releases. License assigned to hardware devices including bare metal, cloud instances, or virtual machines.
2. Singularity Enterprise Licensing: Site-based license model for enterprise deployments with additional features including OCI registry, disaster recovery capabilities, and centralized management. Licenses assigned to physical locations or cloud instances.
3. Singularity Container Services (Cloud): Hosted cloud services including library, remote builder, and keystore. Free tier available with usage limits of 11GB storage and 500 minutes build time over rolling 30-day window. Paid tiers for higher usage.
4. Professional Services and Support: Technical support services including security advisories, installation assistance, and dedicated support portal access for commercial customers.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

Sylabs develops and maintains the Singularity container runtime technology purpose-built for high-performance computing (HPC) and performance-intensive environments. The company sells SingularityPRO (a commercially supported container runtime with node-based licensing and advance security patches) and Singularity Enterprise (an enterprise platform with on-premise OCI registry, remote builder, keystore, and disaster recovery). It also offers Singularity Container Services, a cloud-hosted platform providing remote container building, library, and keystore capabilities with a free tier and paid usage tiers. The open-source community edition SingularityCE underpins the product family.

Product overview

Sylabs provides a comprehensive container technology portfolio centered on Singularity, a container runtime specifically designed for HPC and performance-intensive computing. The product family includes SingularityCE (open-source community edition), SingularityPRO (professionally supported commercial version with security patches prior to public disclosure), and Singularity Enterprise (enterprise platform with on-premise OCI registry, remote builder, and cloud services). Singularity Container Services provides cloud-hosted remote building and container library access. The key differentiator is the Singularity Image Format (SIF) providing portable, reproducible, and secure container environments optimized for high-performance computing, AI/ML workloads, and scientific computing. Version 4.x introduced OCI-mode and OCI-SIF hybrid format for enhanced OCI compatibility while maintaining Singularity's unique security model and mobility features.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• SingularityCE: Open source community edition of the Singularity container runtime
• SingularityPRO
• Singularity Enterprise
• Singularity Container Services

Products and services

• SingularityCE (Community Edition) Open-source container runtime designed for HPC and performance-intensive environments. Provides the Singularity Image Format (SIF) for secure, portable single-file container images, with native GPU and MPI support. Free community edition distributed via GitHub for HPC users, researchers, and developers.
• SingularityPRO Professionally supported commercial container runtime for enterprise deployments. Provides node-based licensing, long-term support releases, prioritized bug fixes, and security patches delivered prior to public CVE announcements. Targeted at HPC centers, research institutions, and enterprises.
• Singularity Enterprise Enterprise container platform for on-premise deployments. Includes a fully OCI-compliant registry, remote builder, keyserver, centralized management, and disaster recovery capabilities via Velero integration with MongoDB and PostgreSQL. Sold via site-based licensing for HPC centers, national laboratories, and large enterprises.
• Singularity Container Services Cloud-hosted container services accessible via cloud.sylabs.io providing a remote builder, container library, and keystore. Includes a free tier with 11GB storage and 500 minutes of build time over a rolling 30-day window, plus paid tiers for higher usage. Enables container builds without local root access.
• Singularity Containers 101 Curriculum Free educational curriculum and certification course teaching Singularity container technology for HPC environments. Covers introduction, installation, running containers, building images, workflow management, signing/verification, and SIF inspection. Includes a certification course with progressive testing for academic institutions and professionals.

Quantifiable outcome

• Containers can run consistently across different systems without modification
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

Feature8 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Sandia National LaboratoriescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaborative development partnership for confidential computing integration into HPC workflows. Co-hosting SC24 Birds of a Feather session on confidential computing. Joint development of SingularityCE 4.0 features including OCI interoperability.
• NVIDIAcoreTechnology or IntegrationTechnical collaboration for GPU container support. NVIDIA GPU capabilities integrated through nvidia-container-cli. Joint session at SC24 featuring CJ Newburn, Distinguished Engineer at NVIDIA.

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Docker: Docker develops the dominant general-purpose container runtime and tooling. While Docker targets microservices and cloud-native workloads versus Sylabs' HPC focus, both compete in the container runtime category with overlapping OCI-compliance requirements and similar developer audiences.
• Apptainer (open-source project): Apptainer is the community fork of Singularity maintained for HPC environments. It is the closest functional peer to SingularityCE and directly competes for the same HPC sysadmin and researcher audience that drives Sylabs' bottoms-up adoption.
• Podman (Red Hat): Podman is a daemonless, OCI-compliant container runtime developed by Red Hat. As an alternative open-source container runtime, it competes with Singularity for developer mindshare and increasingly intersects with HPC and AI/ML workloads via Red Hat's enterprise distribution.
• Charliecloud (open-source project): Charliecloud is an HPC-focused, unprivileged container runtime developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It targets the same HPC use cases as Singularity with a similar minimalist, security-first philosophy and competes for institutional deployments.

Broad incumbents

• Red Hat OpenShift: Red Hat OpenShift is the enterprise Kubernetes platform with broad container orchestration capabilities. It overlaps with Singularity Enterprise on enterprise container management but lacks Singularity's HPC-specific scheduler, MPI, and SIF portability features.
• SUSE Rancher: SUSE Rancher is a multi-cluster Kubernetes management platform serving enterprise container workloads. It competes with Singularity Enterprise for enterprise container orchestration budgets, though Singularity differentiates via HPC-native features.
• NVIDIA (NGC / AI Enterprise): NVIDIA operates NGC (a GPU-optimized container registry) and AI Enterprise software, which competes with Singularity's GPU containerization in AI/ML workflows. As a partner and competitor, NVIDIA's enterprise reach could pressure Sylabs in the GPU container segment.
• Amazon Web Services (EKS / ECS): AWS offers managed container services (EKS, ECS, Batch) that absorb enterprise and HPC container workloads. As more HPC moves to cloud-native stacks, AWS's bundled container services compete with Singularity's cloud-hosted Singularity Container Services.
• HPE (HPC software and Cray systems): HPE delivers integrated HPC systems (Cray) and software stacks to supercomputing centers. As a broad incumbent in HPC procurement, HPE competes with Sylabs for influence over container runtime standards in flagship HPC deployments.

Others

• Altair Engineering (HPC software portfolio): Altair provides a broad HPC software portfolio including workload managers and PBS Professional. While not a direct container competitor, Altair is a peer in the HPC tooling ecosystem where Sylabs positions Singularity and Warewulf.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/SylabsIO
• GitHubgithub.com/sylabs/singularity
• YouTubeyoutube.com/c/SylabsInc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sylabs-inc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Sylabs