LXD vs Portainer

Overview

LXD

Stacks104

Followers194

Votes68

Portainer

Stacks507

Followers842

Votes146

LXD vs Portainer: What are the differences?

Installation Process: LXD is a system container manager while Portainer is a lightweight management UI for Docker environments, simplifying Docker container management. LXD needs to be installed as a service on the host machine, whereas Portainer is a web-based management interface that can be accessed via a browser after installation.
Container Types: LXD supports system containers, which are similar to virtual machines, providing full OS capabilities, while Portainer is designed specifically for managing Docker containers. LXD can run multiple Linux distributions, Windows, and even macOS system containers, whereas Portainer is limited to managing Docker containers only.
User Interface: LXD has a command-line interface (CLI) for managing containers, images, and storage, while Portainer offers a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for easier container management. Portainer's interface allows users to easily create, edit, and delete containers without the need for complex commands.
Scalability: LXD is designed for managing large-scale container deployments and is suitable for enterprise-level use cases requiring high performance and security. Portainer, on the other hand, is more suitable for smaller-scale deployments or individual developers looking for a simple container management solution.
Security Features: LXD provides strict container isolation through kernel namespaces and capabilities, making it ideal for multi-tenancy environments where security is a top priority. Portainer focuses more on ease of use and user accessibility, with security features that may not be as robust compared to LXD.
Community Support and Development: LXD is developed and maintained by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, and has a strong community of contributors and users for support and development. Portainer also has an active community but may not have the same level of industry backing as LXD.

In Summary, LXD is a robust system container manager for enterprise-level deployments, while Portainer is a user-friendly Docker container management interface suited for smaller-scale usage.

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Advice on LXD, Portainer

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

LXD	Portainer
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.	It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.
-	Docker management; Docker UI; Docker cluster management; Swarm visualizer; Authentication; User Access Control; Docker container management; Docker service management; Docker overview; Docker console; Docker swarm status; Docker image management; Docker network management; Docker dashboard; Remote HTTP API; Automation
Statistics
Stacks 104	Stacks 507
Followers 194	Followers 842
Votes 68	Votes 146
Pros & Cons
Pros 10 More simple 8 Open Source 8 API 8 Best 7 Cluster	Pros 36 Simple 27 Great UI 19 Friendly 12 Easy to setup, gives a practical interface for Docker 11 Fully featured
Integrations
LXC	Docker Swarm Docker Secrets Auth0 Kubernetes Docker

What are some alternatives to LXD, Portainer?

Docker

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

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

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.

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

Related Comparisons

LXD vs Portainer: What are the differences?

Installation Process: LXD is a system container manager while Portainer is a lightweight management UI for Docker environments, simplifying Docker container management. LXD needs to be installed as a service on the host machine, whereas Portainer is a web-based management interface that can be accessed via a browser after installation.
Container Types: LXD supports system containers, which are similar to virtual machines, providing full OS capabilities, while Portainer is designed specifically for managing Docker containers. LXD can run multiple Linux distributions, Windows, and even macOS system containers, whereas Portainer is limited to managing Docker containers only.
User Interface: LXD has a command-line interface (CLI) for managing containers, images, and storage, while Portainer offers a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) for easier container management. Portainer's interface allows users to easily create, edit, and delete containers without the need for complex commands.
Scalability: LXD is designed for managing large-scale container deployments and is suitable for enterprise-level use cases requiring high performance and security. Portainer, on the other hand, is more suitable for smaller-scale deployments or individual developers looking for a simple container management solution.
Security Features: LXD provides strict container isolation through kernel namespaces and capabilities, making it ideal for multi-tenancy environments where security is a top priority. Portainer focuses more on ease of use and user accessibility, with security features that may not be as robust compared to LXD.
Community Support and Development: LXD is developed and maintained by Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, and has a strong community of contributors and users for support and development. Portainer also has an active community but may not have the same level of industry backing as LXD.

In Summary, LXD is a robust system container manager for enterprise-level deployments, while Portainer is a user-friendly Docker container management interface suited for smaller-scale usage.

LXD vs Portainer

Overview