What is the difference between Docker and VirtualBox?
I have used VirtualBox a lot on my Mac for Linux images. What would be the advantage of moving to Docker? So I would like to know what the difference between Docker and VirtualBox is?
1 Answer
Docker is an application virtualisation tool. VirtualBox is a Virtual Machine tool.
VB simulates an entire hardware environment whereas Docker isolates the reads/writes of the enclosed application from the rest of the OS.
The overheads of a whole VM can be considerable whereas Docker apps don't need to replicate all of the OS so, in theory, you may be able to get more out of your host environment.
On the other hand, it can be very tricky to get applications to play nicely together with Docker due to the application isolation.
Also, Docker does not yet run on Windows (that is due soon though) so there are platform limitations too.
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