What is a alternative we can use?
My team and I often use Docker images as part of our development process on our desktop machines.
My team and I often use Docker images as part of our development process on our desktop machines.
Otherwise, VMs are usually overlooked as an alternative to "docker images", most probably because many people entered the industry after docker images became popular, and they don't know anything else. If you design it properly, stick with establish technology like QEMU, you can have the same environment without having to touch docker at all.
That said, swapping from Docker to VMs for things is nowhere near as simple or straightforward.
The near-frictionless ability to stand up/tear-down a 'known' good image and configuration, with the ability to swap in/out networking, volume or other environmental configuration is what made Docker so popular.
We use Docker containers for a wide range of things, and while we could reproduce all of that as VMs - it would take a lot more effort, and it would introduce a lot more delays waiting to build/replace a VM.
> VMs are usually overlooked as an alternative to "docker images",
I don't think this is the only reason people use docker. Docker let's you compile an artifact and deterministically recreate that artifact at any point. When you want to deploy this artifact everything is hermetically included in it. No network access or startup time. Just starts and it's good.
If you have VM tooling that lets me do that without spawning a VM repeatedly and doesn't give me an effective way to modify the FS & copy my programs in (packer) then let me know. I haven't found anything VM related that's simple to use
In addition: vms still have a performance hit much more significant than processes.
With 19.03 it should still be possible to access the public hub, I think.