How does containerization differ from virtualization?

Containerization and virtualization are technologies for isolating applications, but they work differently.

Virtualization creates full virtual machines with their own OS kernel, allowing different operating systems to run on a single physical server. Each VM contains its own copy of the OS, which requires significant resources.

Containerization uses the host's kernel capabilities (such as cgroups and namespaces in Linux) to isolate processes and resources, with all containers sharing a single OS kernel. This makes containers more lightweight and faster to start compared to VMs.

Example: Docker is a popular containerization tool, and VMware is an example of virtualization.

Summary:

• Virtualization: heavier, isolates at the OS level, suitable for running different OSes.
• Containerization: lighter, isolates at the process level, faster and more efficient for microservices.