moby/docs/sources/index.md

page_title: About Docker page_description: Docker introduction home page page_keywords: docker, introduction, documentation, about, technology, understanding, Dockerfile

About Docker

Secure And Portable Containers Made Easy

Introduction

Docker is a container based virtualization framework. Unlike traditional virtualization Docker is fast, lightweight and easy to use. Docker allows you to create containers holding all the dependencies for an application. Each container is kept isolated from any other, and nothing gets shared.

Docker highlights

• Containers provide sand-boxing:
  Applications run securely without outside access.
• Docker allows simple portability:
  Containers are directories, they can be zipped and transported.
• It all works fast:
  Starting a container is a very fast single process.
• Docker is easy on the system resources (unlike VMs):
  No more than what each application needs.
• Agnostic in its essence:
  Free of framework, language or platform dependencies.

And most importantly:

• Docker reduces complexity:
  Docker accepts commands in plain English, e.g. docker run [..].

About this guide

In this introduction we will take you on a tour and show you what makes Docker tick.

On the first page, which is informative:

• You will find information on Docker;
• And discover Docker's features.
• We will also compare Docker to virtual machines;
• And see some common use cases.

Click here to go to Understanding Docker.

The second page has technical information on:

• The architecture of Docker;
• The underlying technology, and;
• How Docker works.

Click here to go to Understanding the Technology.

On the third page we get practical. There you can:

• Learn about Docker's components (i.e. Containers, Images and the Dockerfile);
• And get started working with them straight away.

Click here to go to Working with Docker.

Finally, on the fourth page, we go hands on and see:

• The installation instructions, and;
• How Docker makes some hard problems much, much easier.

Click here to go to Get Docker.

Note: We know how valuable your time is. Therefore, the documentation is prepared in a way to allow anyone to start from any section need. Although we strongly recommend that you visit Understanding Docker to see how Docker is different, if you already have some knowledge and want to quickly get started with Docker, don't hesitate to jump to Working with Docker.