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VMs vs Containers — what's actually shared

Week 01 · 5 min

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What this covers

A VM has its own kernel, its own OS, gigabytes of disk. A container shares the host kernel and packages only the userspace. Why the difference drives everything else.

  1. The two stack diagrams side by side
  2. Size, boot time, overhead
  3. What 'shared kernel' actually means
  4. Why Linux containers need a Linux host
  5. What Docker Desktop does on Windows and macOS
  6. When VMs are still the right tool