Virtual Machines vs Containers: Learn the Key Differences
Written By
Ananaya Kandpal
Reading time: 4 minutes
Currently, several advanced applications are solely dependent on virtualization. It is a technique that enables running many environments on a single physical server. Virtualization has transformed how engineering teams build and deploy applications by improving resource allocation, improving security, and minimizing cost.
Virtualization is basically implemented through two technologies: virtual machines and containers. While both technologies are solid, they differ significantly in terms of benefits and use cases. Containers and virtual machines are two primary technologies that allow applications to run in isolated environments. While both offer benefits like resource management and portability, they differ significantly in their architecture, resource utilization, and use cases.
In this post, we will learn the main differences between virtual machines and containers, and assist you in selecting the best technology for implementing virtualization
What are Containers?
Containers are light in weight, portable, and self-contained executable images that contain software applications and their dependencies. They are used to deploy and run applications in a compatible way across multiple environments, like as development, staging, and production.
Containers are generally deployed from an image by using an orchestration platform, like Kubernetes. These platforms offer a way to handle and house containers at scale.
Containers have a number of advantages over traditional virtualization methods. As they are lighter and portable compared to VMs, containers support the decomposition of a monolith into microservices. In addition, containers are faster to handle and house than VMs, which can save time and money with application deployment.
Use Cases for Containers
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Microservices Architecture: Containers are ideal for applications using a microservice architecture, where each microservice acts as a specific function, like data storage or user authentication. Since containers are application-independent, they enable microservices to coexist while ensuring that concerns in one service do not impact others.
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Portability Across Environments: Containers make it easy for developers to move code from development to testing to production. They are created to package applications that operate successfully across various systems, which decreases compatibility issues.
What are Virtual Machines?
A virtual machine or guests indicate instances of an operating system co-located on a physical machine through the use of a hypervisor. Each VM has its own operating system, memory, and other resources, which are isolated from the other VMs on the same physical computer. It enables several operating systems to run on the same physical components without interfering with each other.
Virtual machines are created and managed using hypervisor software. A hypervisor refers to software that handles a physical computer’s resources and distributes them to virtual machines.
Use Cases of Virtual Machines
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Operating Legacy Applications: VMs are integral for operating legacy applications that need outdated operating systems,s. Since VMs can have their own operating system environments, teams can continue using their older applications that may not be compatible with the latest operating systems.
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Multi-OS Environments: VMs are highly effective when applications need to operate on different operating systems. For example, you can set up VMs to run Linux, Windows, and other operating systems on the same physical machine.
Understanding the Difference Between Containers and VMs
As discussed, virtual machines access the hardware of a physical machine through a hypervisor. The hypervisor created an extra layer enabling the VM to access CPU, memory, and storage.
On the contrary, containers represent a package that includes an executable with the dependencies it requires to run. It means that each container shares the physical machine’s hardware and operating system kernel with other containers.
As a result, virtual machines are generally more resource-intensive compared to containers. However, virtual machines also offer a solid level of isolation, which is crucial for security and compliance reasons. Here’s the comparison chart to understand the main difference clearly.
| Feature | Container | Virtual Machine |
|---|---|---|
| Operating System | Shares the host OS kernel | Guest OS (complete OS instance) |
| Size | Megabytes (MBs) | Gigabytes (GBs) |
| Boot Time | Seconds | Minutes |
| Resources | Lower | Higher |
| Isolation | Process-level | Hardware-level |
Is it possible to use containers and virtual machines together?
Yes, it is completely possible to use containers and virtual machines simultaneously. A virtual machine can be created that emulates an exceptional hardware configuration. An operating system can then be installed within this virtual machine’s hardware. Once the virtual machine is functional and boots the operating system, a container runtime can be installed on the operating system. At this point, we have a functional computational system with emulated hardware that we can install containers on.
Thus, portable containers have altered the way we create and deploy software by making everything faster. However, virtual machines are still very crucial in several situations. In corporate environments where security, compatibility, and reliability matter the most. VMs remain the better choice.
