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Docker

159.6K
123.4K
+ 1
3.8K
Flatpak

4
7
+ 1
0
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Docker vs Flatpak: What are the differences?

Developers describe Docker as "Enterprise Container Platform for High-Velocity Innovation". The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere. On the other hand, Flatpak is detailed as "Build and distribute applications on Linux". It is a next-generation technology for building and distributing desktop applications on Linux.

Docker and Flatpak can be categorized as "Virtual Machine Platforms & Containers" tools.

Some of the features offered by Docker are:

  • Integrated developer tools
  • open, portable images
  • shareable, reusable apps

On the other hand, Flatpak provides the following key features:

  • Build for every distro - Create one app and distribute it to the entire Linux desktop market.
  • Stable platforms - Runtimes provide platforms of common libraries that you can depend on.
  • Consistent environments - Develop and test your application in an environment that’s identical to the one users have.

Docker is an open source tool with 55.8K GitHub stars and 16.1K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Docker's open source repository on GitHub.

Decisions about Docker and Flatpak
Florian Sager
IT DevOp at Agitos GmbH · | 2 upvotes · 336.4K views
Chose
LXDLXD
over
DockerDocker

lxd/lxc and Docker aren't congruent so this comparison needs a more detailed look; but in short I can say: the lxd-integrated administration of storage including zfs with its snapshot capabilities as well as the system container (multi-process) approach of lxc vs. the limited single-process container approach of Docker is the main reason I chose lxd over Docker.

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Pros of Docker
Pros of Flatpak
  • 824
    Rapid integration and build up
  • 690
    Isolation
  • 520
    Open source
  • 505
    Testa­bil­i­ty and re­pro­ducibil­i­ty
  • 459
    Lightweight
  • 217
    Standardization
  • 184
    Scalable
  • 105
    Upgrading / down­grad­ing / ap­pli­ca­tion versions
  • 87
    Security
  • 84
    Private paas environments
  • 33
    Portability
  • 25
    Limit resource usage
  • 16
    Game changer
  • 15
    I love the way docker has changed virtualization
  • 13
    Fast
  • 11
    Concurrency
  • 7
    Docker's Compose tools
  • 5
    Easy setup
  • 5
    Fast and Portable
  • 4
    Because its fun
  • 3
    Makes shipping to production very simple
  • 2
    It's dope
  • 2
    Highly useful
  • 1
    HIgh Throughput
  • 1
    Very easy to setup integrate and build
  • 1
    Package the environment with the application
  • 1
    Does a nice job hogging memory
  • 1
    Open source and highly configurable
  • 1
    Simplicity, isolation, resource effective
  • 1
    MacOS support FAKE
  • 1
    Its cool
  • 1
    Docker hub for the FTW
  • 1
    Super
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    Cons of Docker
    Cons of Flatpak
    • 8
      New versions == broken features
    • 6
      Unreliable networking
    • 6
      Documentation not always in sync
    • 4
      Moves quickly
    • 3
      Not Secure
      Be the first to leave a con

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      What is Docker?

      The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere

      What is Flatpak?

      It is a next-generation technology for building and distributing desktop applications on Linux

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      Jobs that mention Docker and Flatpak as a desired skillset
      Pinterest
      San Francisco, CA, US; , CA, US
      CBRE
      United States of America Texas Richardson
      CBRE
      United States of America Texas Richardson
      CBRE
      United States of America Texas Richardson
      LaunchDarkly
      Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
      What companies use Docker?
      What companies use Flatpak?
        No companies found
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        What tools integrate with Docker?
        What tools integrate with Flatpak?
          No integrations found

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          What are some alternatives to Docker and Flatpak?
          LXC
          LXC is a userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Through a powerful API and simple tools, it lets Linux users easily create and manage system or application containers.
          rkt
          Rocket is a cli for running App Containers. The goal of rocket is to be composable, secure, and fast.
          Kubernetes
          Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.
          Cloud Foundry
          Cloud Foundry is an open platform as a service (PaaS) that provides a choice of clouds, developer frameworks, and application services. Cloud Foundry makes it faster and easier to build, test, deploy, and scale applications.
          Vagrant
          Vagrant provides the framework and configuration format to create and manage complete portable development environments. These development environments can live on your computer or in the cloud, and are portable between Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
          See all alternatives