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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
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  4. Virtual Machine Platforms And Containers
  5. Docker vs Packer vs Vagrant Cloud

Docker vs Packer vs Vagrant Cloud

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Docker
Docker
Stacks194.2K
Followers143.8K
Votes3.9K
Vagrant Cloud
Vagrant Cloud
Stacks33
Followers47
Votes2
Packer
Packer
Stacks573
Followers566
Votes41

Docker vs Packer vs Vagrant Cloud: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Docker, Packer, and Vagrant Cloud are all popular tools used in the field of DevOps to streamline the development and deployment processes. Despite serving a similar purpose, these tools have distinct differences that set them apart. Let's explore the key differences between Docker, Packer, and Vagrant Cloud.

  1. Containerization vs. Image Creation: Docker focuses on containerization, allowing developers to create lightweight and isolated environments that contain all the necessary dependencies for an application to run. Packer, on the other hand, is primarily used for creating machine images that can be deployed on various platforms and cloud providers. Vagrant Cloud serves as a platform for sharing and distributing preconfigured Vagrant environments.

  2. Portability and Consistency: Docker emphasizes portability, enabling developers to package applications and dependencies into self-contained containers that can run consistently across different environments. Packer focuses on creating machine images that can be deployed on multiple platforms, cloud providers, and virtualization tools, ensuring consistency across these environments. Vagrant Cloud simplifies the sharing and distribution of development environments, making it easier for teams to maintain consistency in their development workflows.

  3. Orchestration and Scaling: Docker provides powerful orchestration capabilities through tools like Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, allowing users to run and manage clusters of containers. Packer, on the other hand, is mainly focused on image creation and does not offer built-in orchestration features. Vagrant Cloud, being a platform for distributing development environments, does not directly provide orchestration and scaling capabilities.

  4. Automation and Infrastructure-as-Code: Docker promotes the use of reusable container images and Dockerfiles, making it easier to automate the deployment and management of applications. Packer also supports automation through the use of JSON configuration files, allowing users to define their infrastructure as code. Vagrant Cloud enables developers to define their development environments using Vagrantfiles, allowing for easy automation and reproducibility.

  5. Community and Ecosystem: Docker has gained widespread popularity and has a vast community of developers and contributors. It has a rich ecosystem of tools, libraries, and prebuilt container images available in the Docker Hub. Packer, while not as popular as Docker, also has an active community and ecosystem with a variety of built-in builders and provisioners. Vagrant Cloud, being a platform for sharing Vagrant environments, offers a marketplace where users can discover and share development environments.

  6. Target Audience and Use Cases: Docker is widely adopted by developers, DevOps engineers, and organizations looking to containerize their applications for better scalability and efficiency. Packer is generally used by infrastructure engineers and DevOps teams to create machine images for various deployment targets. Vagrant Cloud primarily targets developers who want to easily manage and share development environments across teams.

In summary, Docker focuses on containerization and portability, Packer emphasizes image creation and consistency across different platforms, and Vagrant Cloud provides a platform for sharing and distributing development environments. Each tool has its own target audience and offers unique benefits in the field of DevOps.

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Advice on Docker, Vagrant Cloud, Packer

Florian
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
Docker
Vagrant Cloud
Vagrant Cloud
Packer
Packer

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

Vagrant Cloud pairs with Vagrant to enable access, insight and collaboration across teams, as well as to bring exposure to community contributions and development environments.

Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image. It embraces modern configuration management by encouraging you to use automated scripts to install and configure the software within your Packer-made images.

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
Vagrant Share: A single command to share your local Vagrant environment to anyone in the world;Box Distribution: Vagrant integration provides flexible versioning and support for private or community boxes;Discover Boxes: Start new projects faster using the right box. Find trusted and top-used community boxes
Super fast infrastructure deployment. Packer images allow you to launch completely provisioned and configured machines in seconds, rather than several minutes or hours.;Multi-provider portability. Because Packer creates identical images for multiple platforms, you can run production in AWS, staging/QA in a private cloud like OpenStack, and development in desktop virtualization solutions such as VMware or VirtualBox.;Improved stability. Packer installs and configures all the software for a machine at the time the image is built. If there are bugs in these scripts, they'll be caught early, rather than several minutes after a machine is launched.;Greater testability. After a machine image is built, that machine image can be quickly launched and smoke tested to verify that things appear to be working. If they are, you can be confident that any other machines launched from that image will function properly.
Statistics
Stacks
194.2K
Stacks
33
Stacks
573
Followers
143.8K
Followers
47
Followers
566
Votes
3.9K
Votes
2
Votes
41
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
    Unreliable networking
  • 6
    Documentation not always in sync
  • 4
    Moves quickly
  • 3
    Not Secure
Pros
  • 2
    Well Known
Pros
  • 27
    Cross platform builds
  • 8
    Vm creation automation
  • 4
    Bake in security
  • 1
    Good documentation
  • 1
    Easy to use
Integrations
Java
Java
Docker Compose
Docker Compose
VirtualBox
VirtualBox
Linux
Linux
Amazon EC2 Container Service
Amazon EC2 Container Service
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm
boot2docker
boot2docker
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Docker Machine
Docker Machine
Vagrant
Vagrant
Vagrant
Vagrant
VirtualBox
VirtualBox
Amazon EC2
Amazon EC2
DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean
Google Compute Engine
Google Compute Engine
OpenStack
OpenStack
VirtualBox
VirtualBox

What are some alternatives to Docker, Vagrant Cloud, Packer?

AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation

You can use AWS CloudFormation’s sample templates or create your own templates to describe the AWS resources, and any associated dependencies or runtime parameters, required to run your application. You don’t need to figure out the order in which AWS services need to be provisioned or the subtleties of how to make those dependencies work.

LXD

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.

Scalr

Scalr

Scalr is a remote state & operations backend for Terraform with access controls, policy as code, and many quality of life features.

Pulumi

Pulumi

Pulumi is a cloud development platform that makes creating cloud programs easy and productive. Skip the YAML and just write code. Pulumi is multi-language, multi-cloud and fully extensible in both its engine and ecosystem of packages.

LXC

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.

Azure Resource Manager

Azure Resource Manager

It is the deployment and management service for Azure. It provides a management layer that enables you to create, update, and delete resources in your Azure subscription. You use management features, like access control, locks, and tags, to secure and organize your resources after deployment.

rkt

rkt

Rocket is a cli for running App Containers. The goal of rocket is to be composable, secure, and fast.

Habitat

Habitat

Habitat is a new approach to automation that focuses on the application instead of the infrastructure it runs on. With Habitat, the apps you build, deploy, and manage behave consistently in any runtime — metal, VMs, containers, and PaaS. You'll spend less time on the environment and more time building features.

Google Cloud Deployment Manager

Google Cloud Deployment Manager

Google Cloud Deployment Manager allows you to specify all the resources needed for your application in a declarative format using yaml.

AWS Cloud Development Kit

AWS Cloud Development Kit

It is an open source software development framework to model and provision your cloud application resources using familiar programming languages. It uses the familiarity and expressive power of programming languages for modeling your applications. It provides you with high-level components that preconfigure cloud resources with proven defaults, so you can build cloud applications without needing to be an expert.

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