Virtual machines

Containers

Virtual machines include the applications, the required dependencies, and a full guest operating system

Containers include the applications and the required dependencies, and share operating systems and underlying infrastructure

Each virtual machine has its own guest operating system; because of this, it requires more resources

Because containers share resources, they require fewer resource, the minimal kernel of the operating system present for each container

The hypervisor manages VMs, environments

The container engine manages containers

You have to add specific resources for scaling

You can scale out containers by creating another container of an image

Fewer virtual machines can be created for the same hardware and resources

More containers can be created for the same hardware and resources

Virtual machines are virtualizing the underlying hardware

Containers are virtualizing the underlying operating system

A VM can take up several GB depending on guest OS

Containers don't require that many GB, because they share resources, they merely use dozens of MB

Virtual machines are generally more suitable for monolithic applications with high-security concerns

Containers are generally more suitable for microservice-based applications, or other cloud-native applications, where security is not the major concern