When comparing Docker vs Rancher, the Slant community recommends Docker for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux container management systems?” Docker is ranked 1st while Rancher is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Docker is:
Docker creates a single object, containing an application with its dependencies, that can be moved between any docker-enabled machines, guaranteeing the same environment for application execution.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Allows for portable application deployment
Docker creates a single object, containing an application with its dependencies, that can be moved between any docker-enabled machines, guaranteeing the same environment for application execution.
Pro Git-like capabilities
Docker tracks changes in systems. It allows for commits and rollbacks and for quick deployment due to having to deploy only the updated code.
Pro Allows re-using components
Docker essentially allows creating boilerplate systems (a LAMP stack, for example) that can be used as a starting point on multiple projects. And you can find multiple such containers already created by people in their public registry.
Pro Automatic build
Allows automatically assembling a container from its source code.
Pro Provides easy sharing and installation of containers through a public registry
Docker allows easily pushing and pulling containers to and from their public index.docker.io registry. Additionally, dotCloud maintains a list of official repositories of the more popular containers.
Pro Application-centric
Pro Works in virtualized environments
You can set up Docker within an already virtualized environment such as a virtual machine. This allows you to run Docker on Mac and Windows, among other use-cases.
Pro Low overhead
Pro Supports a wide range of isolation tools
Docker can be used with OpenVZ, systemd-nspawn, libvirt-lxc, libvirt-sandbox, qemu/kvm, BSD Jails, Solaris Zones, and chroot.
Pro Tool ecosystem
Pro Web GUI cluster management
Intuitive and easy to use web gui.
Pro Mult-environment cluster system
- Cattle (Rancher default)
- Swarm
- Kubernetes
- Mesos
Pro Service catalog is easy
Rancher provides a catalog of application templates that make it easy to deploy complex stacks.
- Rancher certified catalog
- Community service catalog
Pro Self-service application stack for self-monitoring
Great contributions from the co community who build the service stack catalog.
One of them is the "Prometheus" template which deploys a collection of containers for monitoring a platform. It's capable of querying all aspects of your environment with some nice pre-built dashboards.
Pro Access control polices
Detailed role-based access control policies can be defined independently for each cluster.