{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,12]],"date-time":"2026-03-12T21:06:33Z","timestamp":1773349593080,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":41,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]],"date-time":"2024-04-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1712620800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Computers"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Traditional hypervisor-assisted virtualization is a leading virtualization technology in data centers, providing cost savings (CapEx and OpEx), high availability, and disaster recovery. However, its inherent overhead may hinder performance and seems not scale or be flexible enough for certain applications, such as microservices, where deploying an application using a virtual machine is a longer and resource-intensive process. Container-based virtualization has received attention, especially with Docker, as an alternative, which also facilitates continuous integration\/continuous deployment (CI\/CD). Meanwhile, LXD has reactivated the interest in Linux LXC containers, which provides unique operations, including live migration and full OS emulation. A careful analysis of both options is crucial for organizations to decide which best suits their needs. This study revisits key concepts about containers, exposes the advantages and limitations of each container technology, and provides an up-to-date performance comparison between both types of containers (applicational vs. system). Using extensive benchmarks and well-known workload metrics such as CPU scores, disk speed, and network throughput, we assess their performance and quantify their virtualization overhead. Our results show a clear overall trend toward meritorious performance and the maturity of both technologies (Docker and LXD), with low overhead and scalable performance. Notably, LXD shows greater stability with consistent performance variability.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/computers13040094","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]],"date-time":"2024-04-09T02:52:17Z","timestamp":1712631137000},"page":"94","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":7,"title":["Toward Optimal Virtualization: An Updated Comparative Analysis of Docker and LXD Container Technologies"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Daniel","family":"Silva","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto Polit\u00e9cnico de Castelo Branco, Av. Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral, n\u00ba 12, 6000-084 Castelo Branco, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Jo\u00e3o","family":"Rafael","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto Polit\u00e9cnico de Castelo Branco, Av. Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral, n\u00ba 12, 6000-084 Castelo Branco, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1524-891X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Alexandre","family":"Fonte","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Instituto Polit\u00e9cnico de Castelo Branco, Av. Pedro \u00c1lvares Cabral, n\u00ba 12, 6000-084 Castelo Branco, Portugal"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,4,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"AbdElRahem, O., Bahaa-Eldin, A.M., and Taha, A. (2016, January 20\u201321). Virtualization security: A survey. Proceedings of the 2016 11th International Conference on Computer Engineering & Systems (ICCES), Cairo, Egypt.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCES.2016.7821971"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Dan Marinescu, D. (2022). Cloud Computing: Theory and Practice, Elsevier. 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