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Bar chart comparing container image sizes versus virtual machine image sizes. Alpine container at 5 MB, slim Python at 45 MB, full Python at 1,000 MB, and virtual machine at 20,000 MB, illustrating the Docker container vs virtual machine size gap.

Docker container vs virtual machine: what changes

A Docker container vs virtual machine comparison: containers share the host kernel and run isolated processes in megabytes, while VMs virtualize hardware and carry a full OS in gigabytes. The right base image and layer order cut a 2 GB image to under 100 MB.

Lars Cornelissen · Aug 13, 2026

Composition of a 2.54 GB Docker image showing pip install at 1.51 GB, base image at 560 MB, other layers at 451 MB, and apt-get curl at 19 MB, illustrating how to reduce Docker image size

Engineering

How to shrink a Docker image without breaking it

Reduce Docker image size by choosing slim bases and multi-stage builds. A 2.54 GB image can drop under 200 MB, cutting pull time and storage cost tenfold.

Lars Cornelissen · Aug 13, 2026

A stacked bar chart showing GitHub cost breakdown: Actions minutes at 45 percent, Copilot seats at 30 percent, Codespaces at 15 percent, and Packages storage at 10 percent.

FinOps

GitHub FinOps: Actions minutes, Copilot seats and the cost of AI coding at scale

A dev team's GitHub bill has four parts: Actions, Copilot, Codespaces and Packages. AI agents multiply the Actions bill. The levers are runner and seat audits.

Lars Cornelissen · Aug 11, 2026