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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Container Registry
  4. Virtual Machine Platforms And Containers
  5. LXC vs OpenVZ

LXC vs OpenVZ

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

OpenVZ
OpenVZ
Stacks12
Followers36
Votes0
LXC
LXC
Stacks116
Followers223
Votes19
GitHub Stars5.0K
Forks1.2K

LXC vs OpenVZ: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will discuss the key differences between LXC and OpenVZ, two popular containerization technologies used in virtualization.

  1. Containerization Technology: LXC (Linux Containers) is a lightweight virtualization method that utilizes the Linux kernel's cgroups and namespaces to create isolated containers. OpenVZ, on the other hand, is a containerization solution that uses a modified version of the Linux kernel to provide virtualization.

  2. Kernel Requirement: LXC requires a host system to be running a Linux kernel with specific features enabled, such as cgroups and namespaces. In contrast, OpenVZ requires the host system to run a custom Linux kernel that has been modified to support containerization.

  3. Ease of Installation: LXC is relatively easier to install and set up compared to OpenVZ. LXC is available in the mainline Linux kernel, making it easily accessible without the need for additional kernel modules. OpenVZ, however, requires a specific kernel version and additional packages to be installed.

  4. User Isolation: LXC provides better user isolation compared to OpenVZ. With LXC, each container has its own individual user namespace, allowing for better security and isolation of user processes. OpenVZ, on the other hand, shares the user namespace among all containers, leading to potential security risks.

  5. Operating System Compatibility: LXC supports a wider range of Linux distributions as both the host and guest operating systems. This flexibility allows for greater compatibility with different Linux distributions. OpenVZ, on the other hand, is limited to specific kernel versions and supports a narrower set of Linux distributions.

  6. Resource Management: LXC provides more fine-grained control over resource management compared to OpenVZ. LXC supports the use of cgroups to allocate and limit resources such as CPU, memory, and disk space for each container individually. OpenVZ has more limited control over resource allocation and may have less granularity in managing resources.

In summary, LXC and OpenVZ differ in their containerization technology, kernel requirement, ease of installation, user isolation, operating system compatibility, and resource management capabilities.

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Detailed Comparison

OpenVZ
OpenVZ
LXC
LXC

Virtuozzo leverages OpenVZ as its core of a virtualization solution offered by Virtuozzo company. Virtuozzo is optimized for hosters and offers hypervisor (VMs in addition to containers), distributed cloud storage, dedicated support, management tools, and easy installation.

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.

A container (CT) looks and behaves like a regular Linux system. It has standard startup scripts; Software from vendors can run inside a container without OpenVZ-specific modifications or adjustment; A user can change any configuration file and install additional software; Containers are completely isolated from each other (file system, processes, Inter Process Communication (IPC), sysctl variables); Processes belonging to a container are scheduled for execution on all available CPUs
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Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
5.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.2K
Stacks
12
Stacks
116
Followers
36
Followers
223
Votes
0
Votes
19
Pros & Cons
No community feedback yet
Pros
  • 5
    Easy to use
  • 4
    Lightweight
  • 3
    Simple and powerful
  • 3
    Good security
  • 2
    LGPL
Integrations
Python
Python
C lang
C lang
C++
C++
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to OpenVZ, LXC?

Docker

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

LXD

LXD

LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

rkt

rkt

Rocket is a cli for running App Containers. The goal of rocket is to be composable, secure, and fast.

Vagrant Cloud

Vagrant Cloud

Vagrant Cloud pairs with Vagrant to enable access, insight and collaboration across teams, as well as to bring exposure to community contributions and development environments.

Studio 3T

Studio 3T

It's the only MongoDB tool that provides three ways to explore data alongside powerful features like query autocompletion, polyglot code generation, a stage-by-stage aggregation query builder, import and export, SQL query support and more.

SmartOS

SmartOS

It combines the capabilities you get from a lightweight container OS, optimized to deliver containers, with the robust security, networking and storage capabilities you’ve come to expect and depend on from a hardware hypervisor.

Clear Containers

Clear Containers

We set out to build Clear Containers by leveraging the isolation of virtual-machine technology along with the deployment benefits of containers. As part of this, we let go of the "generic PC hardware" notion traditionally associated with virtual machines; we're not going to pretend to be a standard PC that is compatible with just about any OS on the planet.

Flatpak

Flatpak

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

Lima

Lima

It launches Linux virtual machines with automatic file sharing, port forwarding, and containerd. It can be considered as some sort of unofficial "macOS subsystem for Linux", or "containerd for Mac". It is expected to be used on macOS hosts, but can be used on Linux hosts as well. It may work on NetBSD and Windows hosts as well.

Boxfuse

Boxfuse

It generates minimal images for your application in seconds. They boot directly on virtual hardware. There is no classic OS and no container runtime.

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