Difference between Docker Image and Container.

Dhathri Vupparapalli
2 min readJul 24, 2021

Let's see the difference between the Docker image and the container.

Docker Image

A Docker image is an immutable file that contains all the libraries, source code, and other scripting files which are needed to run an application. All the images are stored in a public Docker registry called Docker Hub. Using the docker pull command we can get an image from the docker hub.

Read What is a Docker Image to know more about Docker Images.

Docker Container

Docker container is nothing but a running instance of an image. Use docker run command to convert Docker Image into Docker container. Each container runs in an isolated environment without disrupting the running applications of a system. We can run multiple containers using a single image.

Read What is a Docker Container to know more about Docker containers.

Difference between Docker Image and Docker Container.

Docker Images and Containers work together to unbind Docker technology. However, there are some differences between Images and Containers that may be difficult to notice for a beginner.

The major difference between Docker Image and Docker Container is that Image is a lift of instructions and a container is created based on the instructions of the Image. We can create multiple containers using the same instructions of Image.

Conclusion

Understanding the difference between Docker Image and Docker Container is very much needed to better use Docker. Image is nothing but a read-only template whereas Container is a running instance of that Image.

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