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Containers vs Virtual Machines

Containers and virtual machines are often presented as competing technologies.

They are not.

They operate at different layers.

Virtual Machines

Virtual machines virtualize hardware.

Each VM includes:

Its own operating system

Dedicated resources

Strong isolation

They are ideal for:

Security boundaries

Multi-tenant environments

Legacy workloads

Containers

Containers virtualize the application runtime.

They:

Share the host operating system

Start quickly

Package application dependencies

They are ideal for:

Consistency across environments

Fast deployments

Scalable services

The Correct Mental Model

Virtual machines provide isolation.
Containers provide consistency.

Most real-world systems run containers inside virtual machines.

At InfraForgeLabs – DevOpsMind, this model is explained before tools are introduced.

At InfraForgeLabs – InfraForge, learners practice defining container-based infrastructure through structured template generation.

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