Difference between containers and virtual machines - Alfresco Content Services - 23.4 - 23.4 - Ready - Alfresco - external - Alfresco/Alfresco-Content-Services/23.4/Alfresco-Content-Services/Install/Install-using-containers/Deployment-concepts/Difference-between-containers-and-virtual-machines - 2025-07-01

Alfresco Content Services

Platform
Alfresco
Product
Alfresco Content Services
Release
23.4
License

It’s important to understand the difference between using containers and using VMs.

A comparison between a container and a VM.

The main difference is that when you run a container, you are not starting a complete new OS instance. This makes containers much more lightweight and quicker to start. A container also takes up much less space on your hard-disk as it doesn’t have to ship the whole OS.