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  3. Docker vs XAMPP

Docker vs XAMPP

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Docker
Docker
Stacks179.0K
Followers143.8K
Votes3.9K
XAMPP
XAMPP
Stacks141
Followers272
Votes6

Docker vs XAMPP: What are the differences?

Introduction

Docker and XAMPP are both popular tools used in web development. While they serve similar purposes, there are key differences between the two.

  1. Architecture: Docker is a containerization platform that allows you to package an application and its dependencies into a single unit called a container. It uses lightweight virtualization to provide isolated environments for applications to run. On the other hand, XAMPP is a software package that includes an Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP scripting language, which are commonly used together in web development. XAMPP provides a complete, pre-configured development environment for building web applications.

  2. Portability: Docker containers are designed to be portable, allowing you to run them on different operating systems and platforms without any changes. This makes it easier to deploy applications across different environments, such as development, testing, and production. In contrast, XAMPP is typically installed on a specific operating system and may require additional configuration or setup when switching to a different environment.

  3. Scalability: Docker provides a scalable platform for running applications by allowing you to easily scale up or down the number of containers running your application. Additionally, Docker supports orchestration tools like Docker Swarm and Kubernetes, which enable you to manage and scale your containers across multiple machines. XAMPP, on the other hand, is primarily designed for local development and may not provide the same level of scalability as Docker.

  4. Isolation: Docker containers provide a high level of isolation between applications, ensuring that changes or issues in one container do not affect other containers running on the same host. This allows for greater security and stability in the overall system. XAMPP, while it does provide some level of isolation through its bundled software components, may not offer the same level of isolation as Docker.

  5. Application Compatibility: Docker allows you to package your application and its dependencies into a container, making it easier to ensure compatibility across different hosting environments. You can build and test your application in a development environment and then deploy it to a production or cloud environment without worrying about compatibility issues. XAMPP, on the other hand, may require additional configuration or adjustments when deploying to different environments, potentially leading to compatibility issues.

  6. Resource Usage: Docker containers are lightweight and efficient, as they share the host operating system kernel and reuse resources whenever possible. This allows for efficient resource usage and makes it possible to run multiple containers on the same machine without significant performance impact. XAMPP, although it provides a bundled set of software components, may not be as resource-efficient as Docker containers, especially when running multiple instances simultaneously.

In summary, Docker offers a containerization platform that provides portability, scalability, isolation, and compatibility for applications, while XAMPP provides a pre-configured development environment with a web server, database, and scripting language. Docker's focus on containerization and its additional features like scalability and orchestration make it a powerful option for deploying and managing applications in a variety of environments.

Advice on Docker, XAMPP

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.

482k views482k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Docker
Docker
XAMPP
XAMPP

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

It consists mainly of the Apache HTTP Server, MariaDB database, and interpreters for scripts written in the PHP and Perl programming languages.

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
Stacks
179.0K
Stacks
141
Followers
143.8K
Followers
272
Votes
3.9K
Votes
6
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
  • 6
    Easy set up and installation of files
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
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Docker, XAMPP?

NGINX

NGINX

nginx [engine x] is an HTTP and reverse proxy server, as well as a mail proxy server, written by Igor Sysoev. According to Netcraft nginx served or proxied 30.46% of the top million busiest sites in Jan 2018.

Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server

The Apache HTTP Server is a powerful and flexible HTTP/1.1 compliant web server. Originally designed as a replacement for the NCSA HTTP Server, it has grown to be the most popular web server on the Internet.

Unicorn

Unicorn

Unicorn is an HTTP server for Rack applications designed to only serve fast clients on low-latency, high-bandwidth connections and take advantage of features in Unix/Unix-like kernels. Slow clients should only be served by placing a reverse proxy capable of fully buffering both the the request and response in between Unicorn and slow clients.

Microsoft IIS

Microsoft IIS

Internet Information Services (IIS) for Windows Server is a flexible, secure and manageable Web server for hosting anything on the Web. From media streaming to web applications, IIS's scalable and open architecture is ready to handle the most demanding tasks.

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat

Apache Tomcat powers numerous large-scale, mission-critical web applications across a diverse range of industries and organizations.

Passenger

Passenger

Phusion Passenger is a web server and application server, designed to be fast, robust and lightweight. It takes a lot of complexity out of deploying web apps, adds powerful enterprise-grade features that are useful in production, and makes administration much easier and less complex.

Gunicorn

Gunicorn

Gunicorn is a pre-fork worker model ported from Ruby's Unicorn project. The Gunicorn server is broadly compatible with various web frameworks, simply implemented, light on server resources, and fairly speedy.

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.

Jetty

Jetty

Jetty is used in a wide variety of projects and products, both in development and production. Jetty can be easily embedded in devices, tools, frameworks, application servers, and clusters. See the Jetty Powered page for more uses of Jetty.

lighttpd

lighttpd

lighttpd has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that suffers load problems.

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