World changing containers and standard de-facto

Docker was first (I believe) on themarket of containerized software. There was a lot of talks that it is nothing more than an interface to unix cgroups and that docker has no future, this is just hyped piece of software. Time proved them wrong. Docker became a standard solution, participated in Open Container Initiative and while fully comply with all the OCI requirements, docker is used much widely. Container solves library/dll hell - that means that you may have two application that require incompatible libs running on the same computer without any problems. Applications are separated, they can't affect each other, their resource consumption may be tuned using docker tools. You may build proof of concept wiring containers into a single docker-compose and have the whole stack running here. Multi stage build allows to build software which does not have access to any secrets used during build step. You may use tons of software without installing it, just by running them in the docker.

Pros

Great documentation. Easy to use. Exists on any OS and platform you may need it (doesn't work with latest ARM Mac yet, but I believe this is a matter of time). Allows to you to use any software / platform / solution you want without actually installing it on your computer. Docker-compose may ran the whole stack right on your laptop and multistage builds takes care of safe software building. Free docker registry on top of that. Tremendous amount of how-to.

Cons

Some functionality behaves differently depending on platform. For example - mounted volumes. Some of issues related to file permissions stays there for at least few years. Internal volumes can not be extracted and moved to another computer easily, which somehow defeats it's purpose. Doesn't play well with WSL/WSL2 and especially if you pair it with build in kubernetes.

The lean virtual machine tool we've been waiting for

Feels like a bit of a learning curve coming from using VirtualBox, vagrant, etc., but when you get that first cluster of virtual environments running interacting apps you know how worth it it was

Pros

Docker works on every platform and makes it simple to match production and development systems. It's similar to older virtual machine and VM management tooling, but much more lean and 100% open source.

Cons

Getting started can be intimidating. While it's worth the time invested, development teams accustomed to working directly on their own hardware or with traditional virtual machine tools will have a bit of a learning curve.

Goodbye MAMP, hello Docker

When previously using MAMP, switching between PHP versions was complex and cumbersone. No so with Docker as entire systems can run alongside one another without a problem, making concurrent testing a breeze.

Pros

Docker's ease of use - even for beginner developers - is great. Being able to quickly architect together a complex technology stack is invaluable when testing and developing software.

Cons

The learning curve can be a little steep for new developers. Projects can too easily be overwritten or lost by incorrect configurations.

Fundamental for modern software services

We are running a fleet of microservices on Amazon ECS and Docker is part of our development, testing, staging and production environments.

Pros

It's become a de-facto standard and there are a lot of resources online to learn everything, from basics to the really advanced tidbits.

Cons

Being a very complex system, sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the parts. Is runc part of Docker? What about containerd? What's moby? The fact that operating system packages with the same name include different things doesn't help. Sometimes there are also subtle bugs that take days to track and attribute to Docker.

Better DevSecOps with Docker

Containerized application is inevitable. All software companies/departments will be used Docker to ship applications. Docker can be managed by command line. So, you only need to memory a few scripts. I strongly recommend docker. However, docker security is another issue to be handled.

Pros

First of all, it's very easy to use. If you have experience on powershell or other batch scripts, you can handle docker command perfectly. Docker changed the world deeply. Container architecture is certain to happen all devops processes. With Docker, software development process and shipping are quite simple. It's because Docker provide a standard file system and command scripts.

Cons

If you are Microsoft Windows 10 user, you need to install specific version of windows that supports Docker. When you decide to use Docker, you have to buy a security application to secure docker file and docker images, containers. So, it is another cost.