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Comment by notsony | Hacker News Reader

So should I use LXD or Docker? I just want to package up an app with dependencies and make it easy for others to use/test.

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If you just want to package an app use docker.

The general rule of thumb I use is "Will I need to ssh into this?" If so, LXD. "Am I just running one application?" Docker.

Without a doubt use Docker. It has the ecosystem, which is extremely important. It also has the support and community.

For devops engineers looking to build an entire enterprise around containers, LXD will be a great option when it reaches maturity and its ecosystem matures. It's not there yet, and probably won't be for a few years.

Another great company that's doing extremely cool things with LXC minus Docker is Flockport[0]

[0] http://www.flockport.com/

So flockport is a competitor to Docker? Seems to do what Docker does. So many choices. CoreOS too . Docker has the momentum and VC$. Hard to really know what the "right" choice is.

Use LXD, it is more flexible.

Can have application structured as multiple processes so can map VM patterns to it easier, without creating unnecessary containers.

Believe you also get better security between containers

Also LXC has been in the kernel longer and seems more mature (since 2.6.20-something).

I like LXD a lot, but it's simply too new to rally behind it fully. You have to backport it to Ubuntu 14.04 if you even want to run it on an LTS operating system.

That being said, I think Canonical has good vision and will execute. LXD combines the best from old and new school.

Also LXC has been in the kernel longer and seems more mature (since 2.6.20-something).

LXC in the kernel? It's a userspace toolkit that makes use of kernel technologies (namespaces, pivot_root, cgroups...), but I don't recall it being bundled as a part of it.

> LXC in the kernel?

Sorry, I meant LXC support. Yeah it is comprised of a set of a features supported by regular Linux kernels + userspace tools. The feature set has been there for a quite a while.

> but I don't recall it being bundled as a part of it.

But it is in contrast to say OpenVZ which required patching the kernel to work.

You could also write an Ansible role for your app which automates the setup and installation. Then installing your app becomes as simple as a single Ansible command without additional dependencies.

Is this open-source or do I have to pay? Not clear from the web-site.

If I have to coordinate multiple apps (three apps in this system, have to speak with each other over ports) and I want to run each app in its own container, on the same server, or distributed, can Ansible help me? Thanks.

Ansible is FOSS - so yes, open-source and free for you to use.

Ansible is an automation tool which lets you create one or more playbooks for automatically configuring and deploying applications.

You certainly could use it to automate the configuration of these apps in containers, and for the case of distributed multi-machine arrangement it will improve your life.

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