Doing Docker? Don’t waste you money 💰

So far it's been pretty close between the M1 Max MacBook Pro and the 2022 Dell XPS 15 with an Intel Core i9 12900KF (Alder Lake), but in this Docker test, we've got a clear winner.

#m1 #m1vsintel #xps15

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[aurelle]

Not surprising at all, docker needing a linux environment it uses a VM internally to run on MacOS, which explains why it's way slower compared to a bare bones linux install where docker directly makes use of the host kernel

[noeldillabough]

Just picked up a 12th gen i9 Lenovo; good to hear it's not bad! I've only ran docker on my mac, best thing for docker is RAM lots of it :) WSL2 on Windows is pretty sweet best of both worlds for some coders.

[ansel]

The output looks different because on the Mac, docker build is using BuildKit, the new builder backend. The older build backend is being used on Linux. Not sure why. You can enable or disable BuildKit explicitly with an env var.

Also, not sure if that Linux is a VM, or on bare metal? If on bare metal, it should have an advantage. All docker operations on Mac are Windows are really happening inside a virtual machine, so there is an extra layer of virtualization. Would also be interesting to see how you have configured the resources allocated to Docker for Mac. By default, its running docker in a VM which doesn't have access to all your cores or memory. Not sure how parallel node builds are, so I don't know how big a difference that would make.

[steveoc]

This has been a good series over the last year or so - trying to get a good docker dev exp on a range of workstations.
Im pretty convinced, after following this from beginning to end ... that the best way to do this is pretty simple :

1 - Build a cheap-ass Linux box with a pile of cheap SSD and lots of cheap RAM. Stick docker-ce on there, and use that to host all your docker builds and running apps, and Kubernetes even if you are into that.
2 - Buy the workstation / laptop that you really love (ie - a good Mac), but dont spend any $AppleTax on maxxing out the RAM or Disk, because you are going to be offloading work to the docker server on your LAN

Price comes out about the same, and you get the advantage (?) of having a dev setup that is a bit closer to your prod setup. The $$ you would spend on upping RAM and SSD in a Mac is about the same $$ as building a cheap ass linux box as a dedicated docker server.

Using that logic, I can justify buying a base model Mac Studio + Studio Display as my workstation, because Im only using it as a really really nice way to edit code, and keep on top of the usual officey stuff - emails / jira / word docs / video calls, etc

[bblakely]

I see many comments saying not a fair comparison and what not, but i think its a very fair comparison if you are considering a laptop purchase and do a lot of code development in with a similar setup to this using docker. In that case this comparison does matter if how each laptop can handle this setup does matter

[GlennFaulkner]

Would be interesting to see the comparison between the bare metal Ubuntu Vs Ubuntu on WSL2

[tommornini]

Willing to bet the node image is Intel based…

[christianbaer]

Not very surprising. The Docker installation for Mac is spinning up a VM in the background. So you have a (probably Linux for ARM) VM running that is operating on the M1 Chip. There has to be some losses there.
I would be interested in the same test on Asahi Linux. I have no idea what the result would be.

[softdesign]

Let's try the --no-cache flag in both laptops. This will avoid caching.

docker build -t [any-name] --no-cache .

[pierrepr]

I’m not an Apple fanboy. But that’s not a fair comparison. Docker is not virtualized on Linux machines. You should try Linux on the Mac as well or at least compare i9 Windows vs Mac M1.

[denisfok]

I think if there is a native Linux for M1 Max, the test will be interesting..

[joecincotta]

Are you running docker arm native? Otherwise it's not really a comparison.

[AmfistomosAtlas]

I've built a Schwarzenegger thumb just to hit the like button. Nice one!

[SheldonHull]

Subscribed as soon as I saw the board with fingers. That deserves a sub😆

[JohnnySouto]

3:37 Intel 11 steps = 12.7sec, Apple 16 steps = 16.5sec. Great Job! [ironic mode = on]

[LucianPantea]

Enabling - Use the new Virtualization framework & Enable VirtioFS accelerated directory sharing from docker desktop I got 12s vs 17s on my m1 max.

[fos]

Linux is a must for working in the container world. The results doesnt surprise me.

[pdn]

As others have said already, docker on mac uses a virtual machine and possibly binary x86 translation (though I am not sure about this). So basically you compared apples to oranges.

[celestar]

Linux is the best option to run docker.

[Franktek]

Hey Alex, I told you 🙂🙂
Can you do the same test on Windows and on the M2 machine ?