Part of GitHub Packages, the service for publishing and managing Docker and OCI container images will remain free for the time being.

GitHub Container Registry, a new GitHub service for publishing and managing Docker images and OCI (Open Container Initiative) images within GitHub, is now generally available.

The registry, which had been in a public beta period since last September, is part of GitHub Packages, GitHub’s service for publishing packages. With general availability, GitHub is consolidating its Docker registry into Container registry. Docker containers previously published to docker.pkg.github.com will automatically be migrated to the Container registry in coming weeks.

GitHub Container Registry features the following capabilities:

• Container visibility independent from repository visibility.
• Anonymous access for public containers.
• Organizational level of ownership of containers.
• Fine-grained permissions.
• Container-specific landing pages.
• Internal visibility settings for containers within organizations.
• Secure access to containers from Actions workflows through the GITHUB_TOKEN.
• Clean starter workflows to publish to Container registry at ghcr.io.

Existing containers now have access to all of the features listed. For the moment, the GitHub Container Registry will continue to be free to use, but billing will start in coming months, with ample advance notice promised by GitHub. During the beta period, millions of downloads per day ran through the GitHub registry, with users having included Homebrew, Home Assistant, and Tiller.