Docker vs. HashiCorp Packer

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Docker
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Docker Enterprise was sold to Mirantis in 2019; that product is now sold as Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. But Docker now offers a 2-product suite that includes Docker Desktop, which they present as a fast way to containerize applications on a desktop; and, Docker Hub, a service for finding and sharing container images with a team and the Docker community, a repository of container images with an array of…
$0
unlimited public repositories
HashiCorp Packer
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
HashiCorp Packer automates the creation of machine images, coming out of the box with support to build images for Amazon EC2, CloudStack, DigitalOcean, Docker, Google Compute Engine, Microsoft Azure, QEMU, VirtualBox, and VMware.N/A
Pricing
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
unlimited public repositories
Pro
$5.00
per month per user
Team
$7.00
per month per user
Business
$21
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Best Alternatives
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Small Businesses
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
GitLab
GitLab
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DockerHashiCorp Packer
Likelihood to Recommend
You are going to be able to find the most resources and examples using Docker whenever you are working with a container orchestration software like Kubernetes. There will always some entropy when you run in a container, a containerized application will never be as purely performant as an app running directly on the OS. However, in most scenarios this loss will be negligible to the time saved in deployment, monitoring, etc.
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We use packer to generate new machine images for multiple platforms on every change to our Configuration Management tools like Chef/Puppet/Ansible It's act single tool for Image building for Multi-provider like AWS/Azure/GCP Helps to achieve Dev/Prod Parity Packer itself doesn't have a state like Terraform. You can't do packer output AMI ID. If you have a scenario where you want to maintain the state for images it would be tough to manage via Packer.
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Pros
  • Kubernetes context switching - very handy
  • Integrate well and seamless - No complicated setup and or UX
  • Ease of updating images and etc - very important
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  • Multi-provider portability
  • Greater testability
  • Super fast infrastructure deployment
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Cons
  • It will be nice to see an admin UI for configuration of images
  • Container networking can be simplified
  • Data storage/volume management can be simplified
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  • Manageability
  • Manageability
  • Manageability
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We are happy with the use of Packer in our organization. Apart from manageability, I don't find any other drawback with Packer.
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Usability
I have been using Docker for more than 3 years and it really simplifies the modern application development and deployment. I like the ability of Docker to improve efficiency, portability and scalability for developers and operations teams. Another reason for giving this rating is because Docker integrates CI/CD pipelines very well
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It's best for building Image with many features and benefits.
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Reliability and Availability
Haven't seen any outages, fatal/unrecoverable errors in my usage so far. Enough said.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Docker Desktop. The CPU high usage is a known issue. Needs fixing. Otherwise, it is great overall. Would not use anything else still.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
No answers on this topic
I only once required support and it was very smooth.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
I haven't found any issue in Implementation that itself describes how well this tool is built.
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Alternatives Considered
We need a solution where initially we can use an OS to trigger our pipeline to be used by terraform and then later in ansible. After doing all work it automatically get exited and we can reclaim the space of our VM. So we created a gitlab pipeline and at the initial stage we defined a docker file which will be our base image and we performed all our activities inside that image to build infrastructure using terraform. Integration we have done in our gitlab pipeline and finally we remove the docker image so that the space can be reclaimed immediately.
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There are lot of tools in market which does the job for Image creation but all of them are not complete Machine/Image as a code. All other alternatives can create Image partially. Main reason for selecting Packer are Packer is lightweight, portable, and command-line driven Packer helps keep development, staging, and production as similar as possible. Packer automates the creation of any type of machine image Multi-provider portability is the feature to die for
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Scalability
It is the only tool in our toolset that has not [had] any issues so far. That is really a mark of reliability, and it's a testimony to how well the product is made, and a tool that does its job well is a tool well worth having. It is the base tool that I would say any organisation must have if they do scalable deployment.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • With Docker adoption, were able to reduce 40% of the time taken to complete workspace setup
  • Provided the environment packaging / configurability capability which enabled resource sharing and interoperability across teams
  • Were able to leverage off the shelf images provided by leading product companies which increased reliability and security exponently
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  • Super fast infrastructure deployment
  • Quick turnaround of infrastructure in multiple cloud using single tool.
  • Increase productivity by reducing time in infrastructure building.
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