AWS Firecracker vs Docker

Overview

Docker

Stacks194.2K

Followers143.8K

Votes3.9K

AWS Firecracker

Stacks6

Followers34

Votes0

GitHub Stars31.0K

Forks2.1K

AWS Firecracker vs Docker: What are the differences?

Introduction

AWS Firecracker and Docker are both containerization technologies that allow for the efficient deployment and management of applications. However, there are several key differences between these two platforms.

Performance: AWS Firecracker is designed for lightweight, single-purpose virtual machines (microVMs), whereas Docker is a containerization platform. Firecracker provides a secure and highly efficient environment for running workloads, with minimal overhead. On the other hand, Docker containers share the host OS kernel, which can introduce some performance overhead.
Security: Firecracker provides strong isolation between microVMs to enhance security. Each microVM is run in its own lightweight kernel and has a minimal attack surface. Docker, although it provides some level of isolation, shares the host OS kernel, making it potentially more vulnerable to container escapes. However, Docker provides features like namespaces and container security options to mitigate security risks.
Start Time: Firecracker has extremely fast startup times, allowing for rapid scaling and efficient resource utilization. It can launch new microVMs in just a few milliseconds. Docker containers, on the other hand, typically take several seconds to start up. Although Docker has made improvements in startup time, Firecracker is still faster when it comes to launching new instances.
Footprint: Firecracker has a smaller footprint compared to Docker. It is designed to provide a minimalist virtualization environment with a small memory and disk footprint. Docker, on the other hand, requires the installation of the Docker daemon and additional container images, resulting in a larger overall footprint.
Elasticity: Firecracker is built to be highly elastic, allowing for efficient scaling and handling of bursty workloads. It can quickly launch and terminate microVMs based on demand, making it suitable for auto-scaling scenarios. Docker also supports scaling, but it may have slightly higher startup times and overhead compared to Firecracker.
Tooling and Ecosystem: Docker has a mature and extensive ecosystem with a wide range of tools and services that support container management, orchestration, and deployment. It has a large community and a rich set of pre-built container images available. Firecracker, being a relatively newer technology, has a smaller ecosystem and fewer tooling options compared to Docker.

In Summary, AWS Firecracker is a lightweight virtualization technology designed for microVMs, providing high performance, security, and scalability. Docker, on the other hand, is a containerization platform focused on providing a broader set of features and a mature ecosystem for managing and deploying containerized applications.

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Advice on Docker, AWS Firecracker

Florian

IT DevOp at Agitos GmbH

Oct 22, 2019

Decided

lxd/lxc and Docker aren't congruent so this comparison needs a more detailed look; but in short I can say: the lxd-integrated administration of storage including zfs with its snapshot capabilities as well as the system container (multi-process) approach of lxc vs. the limited single-process container approach of Docker is the main reason I chose lxd over Docker.

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Detailed Comparison

Docker	AWS Firecracker
The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere	Firecracker is an open source virtualization technology that is purpose-built for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant container and function-based services that provide serverless operational models. Firecracker runs workloads in lightweight virtual machines, called microVMs, which combine the security and isolation properties provided by hardware virtualization technology with the speed and flexibility of containers.
Integrated developer tools; open, portable images; shareable, reusable apps; framework-aware builds; standardized templates; multi-environment support; remote registry management; simple setup for Docker and Kubernetes; certified Kubernetes; application templates; enterprise controls; secure software supply chain; industry-leading container runtime; image scanning; access controls; image signing; caching and mirroring; image lifecycle; policy-based image promotion	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 31.0K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 2.1K
Stacks 194.2K	Stacks 6
Followers 143.8K	Followers 34
Votes 3.9K	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 823 Rapid integration and build up 692 Isolation 521 Open source 505 Testability and reproducibility 460 Lightweight Cons 8 New versions == broken features 6 Documentation not always in sync 6 Unreliable networking 4 Moves quickly 3 Not Secure	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Java Docker Compose VirtualBox Linux Amazon EC2 Container Service Docker Swarm boot2docker Kubernetes Docker Machine Vagrant	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Docker, AWS Firecracker?

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a compute service that runs your code in response to events and automatically manages the underlying compute resources for you. You can use AWS Lambda to extend other AWS services with custom logic, or create your own back-end services that operate at AWS scale, performance, and security.

LXD

LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

Azure Functions

Azure Functions is an event driven, compute-on-demand experience that extends the existing Azure application platform with capabilities to implement code triggered by events occurring in virtually any Azure or 3rd party service as well as on-premises systems.

Google Cloud Run

A managed compute platform that enables you to run stateless containers that are invocable via HTTP requests. It's serverless by abstracting away all infrastructure management.

Serverless

Build applications comprised of microservices that run in response to events, auto-scale for you, and only charge you when they run. This lowers the total cost of maintaining your apps, enabling you to build more logic, faster. The Framework uses new event-driven compute services, like AWS Lambda, Google CloudFunctions, and more.

Google Cloud Functions

Construct applications from bite-sized business logic billed to the nearest 100 milliseconds, only while your code is running

Knative

Knative provides a set of middleware components that are essential to build modern, source-centric, and container-based applications that can run anywhere: on premises, in the cloud, or even in a third-party data center

LXC

LXC is a userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Through a powerful API and simple tools, it lets Linux users easily create and manage system or application containers.

OpenFaaS

Serverless Functions Made Simple for Docker and Kubernetes

Nuclio

nuclio is portable across IoT devices, laptops, on-premises datacenters and cloud deployments, eliminating cloud lock-ins and enabling hybrid solutions.

Related Comparisons

AWS Firecracker vs Docker: What are the differences?

Introduction

Performance: AWS Firecracker is designed for lightweight, single-purpose virtual machines (microVMs), whereas Docker is a containerization platform. Firecracker provides a secure and highly efficient environment for running workloads, with minimal overhead. On the other hand, Docker containers share the host OS kernel, which can introduce some performance overhead.
Security: Firecracker provides strong isolation between microVMs to enhance security. Each microVM is run in its own lightweight kernel and has a minimal attack surface. Docker, although it provides some level of isolation, shares the host OS kernel, making it potentially more vulnerable to container escapes. However, Docker provides features like namespaces and container security options to mitigate security risks.
Start Time: Firecracker has extremely fast startup times, allowing for rapid scaling and efficient resource utilization. It can launch new microVMs in just a few milliseconds. Docker containers, on the other hand, typically take several seconds to start up. Although Docker has made improvements in startup time, Firecracker is still faster when it comes to launching new instances.
Footprint: Firecracker has a smaller footprint compared to Docker. It is designed to provide a minimalist virtualization environment with a small memory and disk footprint. Docker, on the other hand, requires the installation of the Docker daemon and additional container images, resulting in a larger overall footprint.
Elasticity: Firecracker is built to be highly elastic, allowing for efficient scaling and handling of bursty workloads. It can quickly launch and terminate microVMs based on demand, making it suitable for auto-scaling scenarios. Docker also supports scaling, but it may have slightly higher startup times and overhead compared to Firecracker.
Tooling and Ecosystem: Docker has a mature and extensive ecosystem with a wide range of tools and services that support container management, orchestration, and deployment. It has a large community and a rich set of pre-built container images available. Firecracker, being a relatively newer technology, has a smaller ecosystem and fewer tooling options compared to Docker.

AWS Firecracker vs Docker

Overview

AWS Firecracker vs Docker: What are the differences?