Software Alternatives & Reviews

Docker VS Packer

Compare Docker VS Packer and see what are their differences

Docker logo Docker

Docker is an open platform that enables developers and system administrators to create distributed applications.

Packer logo Packer

Packer is an open-source software for creating identical machine images from a single source configuration.
  • Docker Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-25
  • Packer Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-15

Docker videos

What is Docker in 5 minutes

More videos:

  • Tutorial - What is Docker? Why it's popular and how to use it to save money (tutorial)
  • Review - Real World PHP Dockerfile Review, from a #Docker Captain

Packer videos

No Packer videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Docker and Packer)
Developer Tools
86 86%
14% 14
DevOps Tools
44 44%
56% 56
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration And Delivery

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Docker and Packer

Docker Reviews

Top 6 Alternatives to XAMPP for Local Development Environments
Docker - A containerization platform that allows developers to package applications and their dependencies into containers. Docker Compose can be used to define multi-container application stacks, including web servers, databases, and other services. Features powerful portability and consistency, supports rapid building, sharing, and container management, suitable for...
Source: dev.to
The Top 7 Kubernetes Alternatives for Container Orchestration
Docker uses images as templates to create new containers using Docker engine commands such as Build -t or run -d.
Kubernetes Alternatives 2023: Top 8 Container Orchestration Tools
Docker is an open-source platform for building, managing, deploying containerized applications. Swarm is a native feature in Docker with a group of virtual or physical machines that lets you schedule, cluster, and run Docker applications. It is a Docker alternative for Kubernetes that provides high portability, agility, and high availability.
Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
Docker Swarm is a native clustering and orchestration solution provided by Docker, the leading containerization platform.
Source: humalect.com
Podman vs Docker: Comparing the Two Containerization Tools
Looking to go forward with Docker? Be sure to reference the guide linked above, as well as our guide When and Why to Use Docker. To see Docker in action, you may also want to look at our guide on How to install Docker and deploy a LAMP Stack.
Source: www.linode.com

Packer Reviews

Introduction to Top Open Source Virtualization Tools
Packer is notably light, high performing, and operates on every major operating system. It assembles and configures all the necessary components for a virtual machine then creates images that run on multiple platforms. Packer doesn’t replace configuration management tools like Puppet or Chef; as a matter of fact, when creating images, Packer can utilize tools like Puppet or...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Docker should be more popular than Packer. It has been mentiond 62 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Docker mentions (62)

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Packer mentions (9)

  • Failed to connect to the host via SSH on Ubuntu 22.04
    If you have just upgraded to Ubuntu 22.04, and you suddenly experience either errors when trying to ssh into hosts, or when running ansible or again when running the ansible provisioner building a packer image, this is probably going to be useful for you. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Create a minimalist OS using Docker Containers and Hashicorp Packer
    I am already using Hashicorp Packer at work and for personal projects and I wanted to test This idea out by wrapping it a single Packer Template file. This reduces the level of maintaining a lot of small scripts, Dockerfiles and configurations and the user can simply trigger a couple of Commands to get a minimalist OS at the end of the process. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel. The oligopoly has won.
    And while it is a slight increase in complexity, it can be an overall net gain in functionality, configurability and reliability. Much like Packer is far more reliable and practical than manually making VM images sitting in front of a terminal, even though making the initial configuration takes some time. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Customized Ubuntu Images using Packer + QEMU + Cloud-Init & UEFI bootloading
    Hashicorp Packer provides a nice wrapper / abstraction over the QEMU in order to boot the image and use it to set it up on first-boot. Instead of writing really long commands in order to boot up the image using QEMU, Packer provided a nice Configuration Template in a more Readable fashion. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • The journey of sharing a wired USB printer over the network
    Packer seemed like the perfect tool for the job. I have never used it before and wanted to get familiar with the tool. It doesn't come with ARM support out of the box, but there are two community projects to fill that niche. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Docker and Packer, you can also consider the following products

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

Terraform - Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Portainer - Simple management UI for Docker

Puppet Enterprise - Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

Apache Karaf - Apache Karaf is a lightweight, modern and polymorphic container powered by OSGi.