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Containers vs. virtual machines

When we think about virtualization, the very first thing come to our mind is virtual machines (VMs). However, virtualization can take many forms, and containers are one of those.


So what's the difference between VMs and containers?


At a high level, VMs virtualize the underlying hardware so that multiple operating system (OS) instances can run on the hardware. Each VM runs an OS and has access to virtualized resources representing the underlying hardware. Virtual machines have numerous advantages. These benefits include the ability to run multiple operating systems on the same server, more efficient and cost-effective physical resource utilization, and faster server provisioning. On the other hand, because each VM contains an OS image, libraries, applications, and other components, it can grow quite large.


A container virtualizes the underlying OS, giving the containerized app the illusion that it has complete control over the OS (including CPU, memory, file storage, and network connections). Because the differences in the underlying OS and infrastructure are abstracted, the container can be deployed and run anywhere as long as the base image is consistent.


Because containers share the host operating system, they do not need to boot an operating system or load libraries. As a result, containers can now be much more efficient and lightweight. Containerized applications can start in seconds and can fit many more instances of the application on the machine than a VM scenario. The shared OS approach also saves money on maintenance costs like patching and updating.



Containers, like virtual machines, enable developers to improve physical machine CPU and memory utilization. Containers go even further because they enable microservice architectures, in which application components can be deployed and scaled more granularly. This is a more appealing option than scaling up an entire monolithic application because a single component is struggling with load.


Below table summarizes difference between VM's and Containers.


Both approaches have advantages, but it is important to note that rather than replacing virtual machines, the ability to use containers within a virtualized infrastructure can often be beneficial.


With this let's wrap this post here.


Thank you for reading!


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