# Minimus container images 6 Hacker News commenters recommended Minimus container images and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 3 of 13 months. **Verdict:** Free, hardened container base images with few known vulnerabilities, FIPS and STIG variants, and an SBOM per build. Critics doubt the vulnerability claims and warn of supply-chain risk. ## Why people recommend it - Free with no signup or trial (4 comments): "happy to hear that the image is free to the community, what a great contribution" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48794792)) "I really appreciate y'all not putting STIG/FIPS behind the paywall." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48664826)) "It's a library of near 0 CVE images available to use for free." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660409)) - Few vulnerabilities, smaller attack surface (3 comments): "The value we provide is a minimalistic architecture so you start with a significantly smaller attack surface" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48661768)) "It's a library of near 0 CVE images available to use for free." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660409)) "reduce your vulnerabilities by 97%+ on average" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660609)) - Offloads hard image maintenance work (3 comments): "The whole value of the product is helping them avoid all the risk and work associated with poorly maintained container images." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48661464)) "a packaging service with greater traceability and velocity than the rando images on docker hub" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659754)) "Many others find it useful to have someone else doing the commoditized but hard work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48661691)) - Transparent SBOM for every build (2 comments): "we try to be as transparent as possible with a cryptographically verifiable SBOM for every build of every image" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659519)) "a packaging service with greater traceability and velocity than the rando images on docker hub" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659754)) ## What people warn about - Seen as a central target for attacks (4 comments): "Maybe it's their business model? Sell to bunch of people and hook them in, then "get hacked", whoops sorry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660757)) "you're just yet another liability - one single service to hack all your "safe" images" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660629)) "Isn't there a slight risk of upstream attacks being amplified by this?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659827)) - Vulnerability claims questioned (2 comments): "You surely mean "without known and reported vulnerabilities". I doubt you're proactively fixing the world across thousands of software packages" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48660578)) "it takes away from the offering when they try to prop up the vuln count for the official images" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48662843)) - Blocks info page on mobile browsers (2 comments): "Completely blocking the image information page to mobile user agents is completely unnecessary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659655)) "blocking it instead of just showing a desktop page feels absurd" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48659915)) - Stale or duplicated front page content (2 comments): "some items on the main page are duplicated, which could be confusing" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48658818)) "on front page the nginx container is 6 days old, so no daily builds" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48658846)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [StageX](https://hackerapproved.com/p/stagex.md): 12 recommend - [Docker Hardened Images](https://hackerapproved.com/p/docker-hardened-images.md): 11 recommend - [Chainguard Images](https://hackerapproved.com/p/chainguard.md): 9 recommend - [Distroless container images](https://hackerapproved.com/p/distroless-container-images.md): 5 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.minimus.io/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Minimus container images", https://hackerapproved.com/p/minimus-container-images/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).