Best artifact/container registry across clouds?

When looking for the best artifact and container registry that spans across multiple clouds rather than locking you into AWS, Azure, or GCP, the "best" choice depends on whether you want a fully managed universal enterprise platform , a self-hosted cloud-agnostic standard , or a developer-ecosystem native.container-registry.com

The top options break down by use case:

• JFrog Artifactory — Best Universal Enterprise Solution (SaaS or Self-Hosted)
  • Why it shines: It is the gold standard for truly universal artifact management. It supports OCI containers alongside Maven, npm, PyPI, Go, Helm, and binaries. You can replicate repositories across multi-cloud environments, set up virtual repositories, and enforce strict enterprise compliance globally.
  • Trade-off: Licensing and user-based pricing can get very expensive at scale.devopsschool.org+1
• Harbor — Best Open-Source, Cloud-Agnostic Registry
  • Why it shines: A CNCF-graduated project that you can deploy identically across AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-prem. It offers robust enterprise features like vulnerability scanning (Clair/Trivy), role-based access control (RBAC), image signing, and multi-tenant support.
  • Trade-off: You own the operational burden, infrastructure scaling, and high availability since it is self-hosted.container-registry.com
• GitHub Packages / GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) — Best for Developer Workflow Integration
  • Why it shines: If your CI/CD pipelines already live tightly integrated in GitHub Actions, GHCR provides a seamless, high-performance OCI registry that naturally handles multi-arch images and maps permissions to GitHub organizations/repositories.
  • Trade-off: Less advanced for non-container binary formats (like Maven or NuGet) compared to dedicated heavyweights like JFrog or Sonatype.devopsschool.org+1
• Sonatype Nexus Repository — Best Enterprise Alternative to JFrog
  • Why it shines: Highly mature, open-core repository manager with great proxying capabilities and multi-format support. Excellent for enterprise dependency management.
  • Trade-off: UI and modern OCI container workflows can feel clunky compared to native cloud registries.devopsschool.org+1

Quick Selection Guide

• Choose JFrog Artifactory if you need a heavy-duty, commercially supported, multi-cloud enterprise source of truth for all package types.
• Choose Harbor if you want complete control, zero licensing costs, and a standardized cloud-agnostic Kubernetes-native registry.
• Choose GitHub Packages if you want friction-free setup tied directly to your source code.devopsschool.org+2

If you want to narrow this down, tell me:

• What package formats are you storing (just OCI/Docker containers, or also npm, Maven, Helm, etc.)?
• Do you prefer a fully managed SaaS or a self-hosted solution on your own Kubernetes clusters?
• What is your approximate scale (team size or data transfer volume)?

When looking for the best artifact or container registry spanning a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud strategy, the "best" choice depends heavily on whether you want a self-hosted/open-source control plane you manage anywhere, a universal commercial enterprise tool , or a native cloud federation approach.harness.io+2

The top contenders for cross-cloud artifact and container management break down as follows:

• 1. CNCF Harbor (Best Open-Source / Self-Hosted Multi-Cloud Registry)
  • What it is: A CNCF-graduated, open-source registry that natively handles images, Helm charts, and OCI artifacts.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: Harbor features robust policy-based replication. You can deploy a Harbor instance in AWS, Azure, GCP, or an on-prem data center, and set up replication rules to sync images seamlessly across regions and cloud providers. It includes built-in vulnerability scanning (Trivy), image signing, and RBAC.
  • Best for: Teams that want a powerful, vendor-agnostic, secure registry that they can run identically across any Kubernetes cluster in any cloud. Check it out at GoHarbor.youtube.com+3
• 1. JFrog Artifactory / JFrog Container Registry (Best Universal Enterprise Powerhouse)
  • What it is: A universal artifact repository supporting virtually every package type (Docker, Maven, npm, PyPI, Helm, Go, NuGet).
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: JFrog is built for hybrid and multi-cloud topologies at scale. Its "smart remote repositories" and multi-site replication allow artifacts to be cached locally in whatever cloud or data center your clusters are running in, drastically reducing cross-cloud data transfer costs and latency.
  • Best for: Large enterprises managing a mix of traditional language packages and containers across diverse cloud providers. Explore options on the JFrog Platform.blog.devops.dev+3
• 1. GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) or GitLab Container Registry (Best Developer-Workflow Native)
  • What it is: Integrated registries tied directly to major Git CI/CD platforms.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: If your multi-cloud strategy relies on GitHub Actions or GitLab CI for deployment, pushing to ghcr.io or GitLab's registry removes the friction of authenticating with external cloud providers. Your CI/CD builds once and deploys anywhere (EKS, GKE, AKS).
  • Best for: Lean-to-medium teams that want zero-infrastructure overhead for their registry and tight GitHub/GitLab permission synchronization. Visit GitHub Packages.blog.railway.com+1
• 1. AWS ECR / Google Artifact Registry / Azure ACR with Federation (Best Hyperscaler Native)
  • What it is: The native cloud provider registries.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: You can pull from AWS ECR into Azure AKS or GCP GKE using cross-cloud IAM/OIDC trust policies. Many organizations treat their primary cloud's registry as the "source of truth" and replicate selectively to secondary clouds.
  • Best for: Teams heavily anchored to one primary cloud who only occasionally deploy workloads to secondary clouds.harness.io+2

To help narrow down the ideal choice, tell me:

• Are you managing only container images/Helm charts , or do you need support for language packages (npm, Maven, Python, etc.)?
• Do you prefer a fully managed SaaS , or an open-source/self-hosted solution?

If by “across clouds” you mean one registry that can serve workloads in AWS + Azure + GCP + on-prem without becoming tightly coupled to one provider, my pick is Harbor.

My ranking

Registry	Best for	Multi-cloud	Artifact breadth	Ops burden
Harbor	Cloud-neutral container/OCI registry	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	Medium
JFrog Artifactory	Enterprise “everything” artifact repository	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Low–Medium
GitHub Container Registry	GitHub-centric engineering teams	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Very low
Google Artifact Registry	GCP-heavy environments	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	Very low
AWS ECR	AWS-heavy environments	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Very low
Azure Container Registry	Azure-heavy environments	⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Very low

🥇 Harbor — best cloud-neutral choice

Harbor is particularly good if you want the same registry semantics everywhere rather than maintaining separate ECR/ACR/GAR repositories.

It supports OCI artifacts, RBAC, vulnerability scanning, signing, and—most importantly for this use case—policy-based replication between registries, including hybrid and multi-cloud deployments.CNCF+1

A common architecture would be:

                    ┌───────────────┐
                    │ Harbor Primary│
                    │   / Control   │
                    └───────┬───────┘
                            │
             ┌──────────────┼──────────────┐
             │              │              │
             ▼              ▼              ▼
        Harbor-AWS      Harbor-GCP     Harbor-Azure
             │              │              │
          EKS/ECS         GKE            AKS

You can also replicate selectively by repository/tag/label rather than blindly copying everything.GitHub

The catch: you own the infrastructure. That's the biggest downside versus managed registries.

🥇 JFrog Artifactory — best if “artifact” means more than containers

If you're asking for a universal artifact repository, rather than specifically a container registry, I'd seriously consider JFrog Artifactory.

It's preferable when you need one platform for things like:

• OCI/Docker images
• Helm charts
• npm
• Maven
• PyPI
• NuGet
• generic binaries
• release artifacts

That's a different problem from simply storing OCI images. Recent buyer guides similarly distinguish universal artifact platforms such as Artifactory from container-native registries such as Harbor/ECR.CIOPages

🥈 GitHub Container Registry — easiest developer experience

If your source code and CI/CD are already on GitHub, GHCR is arguably the easiest option. It supports Docker and OCI images, granular permissions, organization-level ownership, and direct GitHub Actions integration.GitHub Docs

I'd choose it when:

GitHub is the center of the software-development universe, and the registry is primarily for application containers. I wouldn't choose it as my first choice for a large enterprise's central multi-cloud artifact-control plane.

What I'd choose

• Containers/OCI + true multi-cloud: Harbor
• Containers + every other package/artifact type: JFrog Artifactory
• GitHub-centric startup/team: GHCR
• Mostly AWS: ECR
• Mostly GCP: Artifact Registry
• Mostly Azure: ACR

One particularly strong architecture is Harbor as the vendor-neutral global registry + cloud-native registries as regional caches/replicas. Harbor explicitly supports replication to other registry services, making this a good fit when you want cloud-local pulls without making your source of truth cloud-specific.CNCF

If you tell me AWS/GCP/Azure mix, number of clusters, approximate image TB/month, and whether you need Helm/npm/Maven/etc., I can narrow this down to a concrete architecture and cost comparison.

I wouldn't choose it as my first choice for a large enterprise's central multi-cloud artifact-control plane.

What I'd choose

You can also replicate selectively by repository/tag/label rather than blindly copying everything.

The catch: you own the infrastructure. That's the biggest downside versus managed registries.

When looking for the best cross-cloud/multi-cloud artifact and container registry, the "best" choice depends on whether you mean pure Docker/OCI container images or a truly universal binary/package registry (covering npm, Maven, PyPI, Helm, containers, AI models, etc.).

The top options split into two distinct categories depending on your exact multi-cloud strategy:

• Universal Enterprise Heavyweights (Cloud-Agnostic)
• Cloud-Native SaaS / Developer-First Tools

1. The True Multi-Cloud Universal Giants (Best for enterprise-wide polyglot environments)

If you need to manage everything from Docker containers and Helm charts to Maven, npm, and Python packages across AWS, Azure, and GCP simultaneously:

• JFrog Artifactory
  • Best for: The gold standard for enterprise universal binary and container management.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: Supports 60+ package formats (including AI/ML models). It offers multi-cloud and hybrid deployments with automated bi-directional repository replication across global sites and clouds, meaning edge or regional clusters pull locally with massive reduction in cross-cloud egress fees.
  • Check it out: Explore options on the JFrog Artifactory page.jfrog.com+3
• Sonatype Nexus Repository
  • Best for: Open-core alternative with heavy enterprise component intelligence.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: Strong multi-format support (Docker, Maven, npm, NuGet) and robust vulnerability/security scanning baked directly into the repository flow. Deployable on any cloud infrastructure.
  • Check it out: Learn more via Sonatype Nexus Repository.devopsschool.org+1
• Cloudsmith
  • Best for: A cloud-native, fully managed, cloud-agnostic SaaS universal package registry.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: If you don't want to self-host JFrog or Nexus on Kubernetes across clouds, Cloudsmith acts as a single centralized SaaS registry with stellar geo-replication and content delivery network (CDN) distribution that abstracts away underlying cloud providers entirely.
  • Check it out: See details at Cloudsmith.devopsschool.org

2. The Open-Source Self-Hosted Champion

• Harbor (CNCF Graduated)
  • Best for: Teams wanting an open-source, enterprise-grade container and artifact registry they can control themselves.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: It natively supports image replication between different instances across distinct cloud providers (e.g., replicating from an AWS EKS cluster registry to an Azure AKS cluster registry). It features robust vulnerability scanning (Trivy), RBAC, and content signing.
  • Check it out: Review the project on CNCF Harbor.blog.railway.com+2

3. Developer & Git-Centric Multi-Cloud (Lightweight)

• GitHub Packages (ghcr.io)
  • Best for: Teams whose CI/CD already lives strictly inside GitHub Actions.
  • Why it shines cross-cloud: It natively supports OCI containers, npm, Maven, RubyGems, and NuGet. While it doesn't do deep cross-cloud P2P caching like JFrog, pulling images from ghcr.io into any cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP) works seamlessly via standard token authentication in your pipelines.devopsschool.org+2

Quick Decision Matrix

• Choose JFrog Artifactory if you are a large enterprise managing diverse file types, strict global compliance, and multi-cloud caching/replication.harness.io+2
• Choose Cloudsmith if you want a zero-maintenance, cloud-agnostic SaaS universal registry.devopsschool.org+1
• Choose Harbor if you want to self-host an open-source solution that handles cross-registry replication smoothly on your own multi-cloud Kubernetes infrastructure.
• Choose GitHub Packages (ghcr.io) if you want the path of least resistance for simple container/package publishing tied to your source code.blog.railway.com+2

To help narrow this down, tell me:

• What types of artifacts are you storing (just Docker images, or also Helm, Maven, npm, AI models)?
• Are you looking for a fully managed SaaS or a self-hosted solution on Kubernetes?

For a true multi-cloud artifact/container registry (AWS + Azure + GCP + on-prem + Kubernetes), the best choice depends on whether you mean container images only or all build artifacts (Maven, npm, PyPI, Helm, SBOMs, etc.).CIOPages

Short answer

Rank	Registry	Best for	My take
🥇	JFrog Artifactory	Enterprise multi-cloud artifact management	Best overall if you need one source of truth for everything
🥈	Harbor	Cloud-neutral Kubernetes/container registry	Best open-source, vendor-neutral container registry
🥉	Sonatype Nexus Repository	Mixed package ecosystems	Strong alternative to Artifactory
4	GitHub Container Registry	GitHub-centric teams	Great developer experience, less ideal as enterprise backbone
5	Cloud-native registries (ECR/ACR/Artifact Registry)	Single-cloud deployments	Excellent inside one cloud, less portable

CIOPages Zaira Labs## My recommendation by scenario

1. Large enterprise, multi-cloud, compliance-heavy

Pick JFrog Artifactory.

Why:

• Docker/OCI images plus Maven, npm, PyPI, Helm, Go, etc.
• Cross-region replication and promotion workflows
• Strong enterprise RBAC, auditability, integrations
• Can run SaaS or self-hosted

Tradeoff:

• Expensive
• More platform than many teams need

JFrog

2. Kubernetes platform team running across clouds

Pick Harbor.

Why:

• OCI-native
• Cloud-neutral
• Runs anywhere Kubernetes runs
• Built-in features commonly needed for clusters: - vulnerability scanning
• RBAC
• image signing support
• replication between registries

Tradeoff:

• You operate it yourself
• Less suitable if you need a universal binary repository

Open Empower Zaira Labs

3. Mostly containers, minimal package management

A good architecture is often:

Developers
    |
CI/CD
    |
Harbor (primary OCI registry)
    |
Replication
 ┌───────┬────────┬────────┐
AWS     Azure    GCP    On-prem
ECR     ACR      GAR

This avoids tying production deployments to one cloud provider.

4. Mostly one cloud

Use the native registry:

• AWS-heavy → Amazon Elastic Container Registry
• Azure-heavy → Azure Container Registry
• GCP-heavy → Google Artifact Registry

They integrate best with IAM, networking, and managed Kubernetes, but they create more cloud coupling.PickMySoft

What I would choose for a new multi-cloud platform

Default enterprise choice:

JFrog Artifactory as the artifact control plane + cloud-native registries as regional caches. Default Kubernetes/platform engineering choice:

Harbor as the central OCI registry + replication to cloud registries. Avoid:

• Making Docker Hub your production source of truth
• Having separate unrelated registries per cloud without replication/policy
• Storing only images and ignoring SBOMs, signatures, and provenance

A useful decision rule:

• Containers only → Harbor
• Containers + every package type → JFrog Artifactory
• One cloud only → that cloud’s native registry
• GitHub-first startup → GHCR until governance needs outgrow itZaira Labs

If you share your environment (Kubernetes? AWS/Azure/GCP mix? artifact types? self-hosted vs SaaS?), I can narrow this to a concrete architecture.

If by “across clouds” you mean AWS + Azure + GCP + on-prem/edge, I’d narrow it to Harbor, JFrog Artifactory, or a managed cloud registry strategy.

My ranking

Registry	Multi-cloud	Containers/OCI	Other packages	Ops burden	Best for
Harbor	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐	Medium	Cloud-neutral container/OCI
JFrog Artifactory	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Low–Med	Enterprise universal artifacts
Google Artifact Registry	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Low	GCP-heavy, but multi-cloud capable
AWS ECR	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Low	AWS-heavy
Azure Container Registry	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Low	Azure-heavy
GHCR	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐⭐	⭐⭐⭐	Very low	GitHub-centric engineering

🥇 Best pure multi-cloud choice: Harbor

Harbor is probably my pick if portability and control are the primary requirements.

It supports OCI artifacts, RBAC, vulnerability scanning, signing, and—most importantly for multi-cloud—policy-based replication between registries, including non-Harbor registries.CNCF+1

You could run:

                 ┌── AWS
                 │   EKS → Harbor/AWS ECR
Build → Harbor ─┼── GCP
                 │   GKE → Harbor/GAR
                 ├── Azure
                 │   AKS → Harbor/ACR
                 └── On-prem / Edge

Harbor can act as the vendor-neutral source of truth, while replicas sit close to workloads. That's particularly attractive when you want to avoid making your deployment architecture dependent on one hyperscaler's registry.

goharbor.io

🥇 Best enterprise artifact platform: JFrog Artifactory

If “artifact registry” means more than containers—Docker/OCI + Maven + npm + PyPI + NuGet + generic binaries, etc.—I'd choose JFrog Artifactory over Harbor.

The distinction is important:

• Harbor = excellent container/OCI registry.
• Artifactory = enterprise-wide artifact management platform.

That's the better choice if you want one artifact system for a large organization with many languages and package ecosystems.CIOPages

🥇 Best managed approach: use each cloud's native registry

If minimizing infrastructure operations matters more than registry portability, I'd actually not force a single global registry.

Use:

• AWS → ECR
• GCP → Artifact Registry
• Azure → ACR

Then replicate/promote images between them as needed.

For example, ECR has native OCI/Docker support, IAM integration, pull-through caching, signing, and tight ECS/EKS integration. Amazon Web Services, Inc. Google Artifact Registry supports Docker/OCI plus Maven, npm, Python, Apt, Yum, Go, and generic artifacts.Google Cloud Documentation

This architecture is often better when you have significant workloads in all three clouds, because production pulls stay local to the cloud rather than crossing cloud boundaries.

What I'd choose

For a startup / SaaS: → GHCR if you're already all-in on GitHub, otherwise Harbor.

For Kubernetes across AWS + GCP + Azure: → Harbor as the neutral source + regional/cloud-local replicas.

For a large enterprise with npm/Maven/PyPI/etc.: → JFrog Artifactory.

For mostly AWS: → ECR.

For mostly GCP: → Artifact Registry.

For mostly Azure: → ACR.

The interesting architecture question is actually “one global registry vs. per-cloud registries with promotion/replication.” For serious multi-cloud, I'd generally favor the latter: one logical artifact supply chain, but geographically/cloud-local registries. Harbor's replication model is particularly well suited to that.Harbor+1

If you tell me your AWS/GCP/Azure split, Kubernetes vs ECS/Cloud Run/AKS, and whether you need npm/Maven/PyPI artifacts too, I can give you a concrete architecture and cost/feature comparison.

When you need an artifact and container registry that spans multiple clouds without locking you into a single vendor's ecosystem, the "best" choice depends on whether you want a self-hosted open-source control plane you manage anywhere, a universal commercial enterprise platform , or a developer-centric native registry.

The top options across clouds break down as follows:

1. The Best Open-Source / Self-Hosted Multi-Cloud Standard: Project Harbor

• What it is: An open-source CNCF graduated registry that stores, signs, and scans container images and OCI artifacts.blog.railway.com+1
• Why it's great for multi-cloud: You can deploy Harbor on AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-premises bare metal. It features robust policy-based image replication, meaning you can automatically sync or replicate images seamlessly between a Harbor instance in AWS and another in Azure or GCP. It includes native vulnerability scanning (via Trivy), RBAC, and image signing (Notary).
• Best for: Teams that want a single unified registry experience across heterogeneous cloud footprints and require strict data sovereignty.

2. The Best Universal Commercial Enterprise Platform: JFrog Artifactory

• What it is: A fully hybrid, multi-cloud, and universal binary/artifact repository manager.
• Why it's great for multi-cloud: Artifactory isn't just for Docker containers; it natively supports virtually every package type (Maven, npm, Helm, Go, PyPI, Conan, OCI artifacts). It runs seamlessly as a multi-cloud managed service or hybrid setup, offering high-availability replication across global regions and cloud providers with advanced security (JFrog Curation) to block malicious open-source packages.
• Best for: Large enterprises with complex, multi-language, multi-cloud pipelines that need a single source of truth across clouds.

3. The Best Developer-Centric Ecosystem Registry: GitHub Container Registry (GHCR) or GitLab Container Registry

• What it is: Integrated registries tied directly to major Git and CI/CD platforms.
• Why it's great for multi-cloud: Because your code and CI/CD pipelines live in GitHub or GitLab, pushing container images or OCI artifacts to ghcr.io or GitLab's registry decouples the build artifact from any specific cloud provider (AWS ECR, Azure ACR). You can pull these images cleanly from any cloud's Kubernetes cluster (EKS, AKS, GKE) using standard token authentication.
• Best for: Lean or mid-sized engineering teams looking for zero-infra-management registries tightly coupled to their Git workflows.blog.railway.com+1

4. The Best Neutral Managed Alternative: Docker Hub

• What it is: The original universal container registry.
• Why it's great for multi-cloud: Completely cloud-agnostic, works identically whether deploying to AWS, GCP, Azure, or edge nodes. However, organizations must account for upstream rate limits and organizational access control costs at scale.distr.sh+2

Quick Comparison Matrix

To help narrow down the ideal choice, let me know:

• Are you looking for a fully managed SaaS or a self-hosted solution?
• Do you only need container images , or do you need to manage other package types (Helm, npm, Maven, etc.)?
• Which CI/CD tools are you currently using?

If by “across clouds” you mean one registry that can serve AWS + Azure + GCP + on-prem, my default recommendation is:

🥇 Best overall: JFrog Artifactory

jfrog.com is probably the strongest choice for a serious multi-cloud platform.

Why:

• True multi-cloud/hybrid: SaaS and self-managed deployments across AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-prem.JFrog Docs+1
• Not just containers: Docker/OCI, Helm, Maven, npm, PyPI, Terraform/OpenTofu, generic binaries, etc.JFrog Docs
• Remote/virtual repositories: useful for creating a single internal endpoint that proxies/caches public registries.
• Replication/sync: useful when workloads exist in multiple clouds or regions.JFrog
• Strong RBAC, metadata, governance, and supply-chain/security integrations.
• Particularly good if you expect the registry to become the central artifact-management layer, rather than merely a place to store Docker images.

My shortlist

Choice	Best for	Multi-cloud	Operational burden
JFrog Artifactory	Enterprise artifact platform	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	Medium
Harbor	Open-source/self-hosted containers	⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	High

Harbor GitLab Docs### 🥈 If you only need OCI/container images: Harbor

goharbor.io is the option I'd seriously consider if you want open source, portability, and control. It's particularly attractive when Kubernetes is the center of your platform and you're willing to operate the registry yourself. Harbor's own landscape documentation compares it directly with cloud-provider registries, Artifactory, Quay, and GitLab.Harbor

🥉 If your company lives in GitHub: GHCR

ghcr.io is wonderfully simple when GitHub Actions + GitHub repositories are already your CI/CD control plane. But I'd choose it less often as the enterprise-wide artifact backbone.

What I would not do for a genuinely multi-cloud platform

I wouldn't make ECR + ACR + Artifact Registry three independent sources of truth unless there's a strong organizational reason. Cloud-native registries are excellent inside their respective clouds, but you end up solving:

image promotion → replication → credentials → policy → vulnerability scanning → retention → provenance → cross-cloud pulls three different ways.

Instead, I'd generally use:

JFrog Artifactory → canonical artifact source → replicate/cache toward AWS/Azure/GCP execution environments

That gives you a consistent namespace and promotion model while allowing compute to remain cloud-native.

One important distinction: if you're asking specifically about container images only, my answer changes somewhat; if you mean containers + Helm + Maven/npm/PyPI/Terraform/binaries/SBOMs, I'd strongly favor Artifactory.

If you tell me your AWS/Azure/GCP mix, Kubernetes/ECS/etc., approximate image volume, and whether you need Maven/npm/PyPI, I can give you a concrete architecture and a JFrog vs Harbor vs native registries cost/operational comparison.