Learn more about LXC vs LXD containers from our experts. Our LXC/LXD Support team is here to help you with your questions and concerns.

LXC vs LXD containers

LXC, short for Linux Containers, is a tool used for the virtualization of operating systems. With LXC, we can operate any software or application in a virtual environment. In fact, the virtual environment functionality makes LXC more secure as well as cheaper. Furthermore, LXC is easy to operate as it also offers Control groups functionality.

LXD, short for Linux Daemon, is an extension that helps direct the LXC. It helps offers new attributes and capabilities to LXC so we can use it more efficiently. Additionally, LXC and LXD communicate with one another via inbuilt libraries liblxc.

Now, let’s dove into some of the key differences between the two:

• LXD is an open-source container management system. Furthermore, it is an extension of LXC. LXD improves existing LXC features and also offers multiple new features for managing and building Linux containers.
• A host can run multiple LXC containers via a single system daemon, reducing the required overhead and simplifying the management. However, with LXC we have to separate processes for each container.
• LXD offers a host-level security feature, to make containers more secure. Unfortunately, availing this on pure LXC-based containers is difficult.
• LXC does not offer the live container migration feature which involves container-related complete configurations and moving directories. However, LXD provides this additional feature.
• LXD can snapshot a running container, and this feature is not available in LXC.
• LXD container has a wide range of features for security, and LXD can easily integrate with Canonical RBAC services.

Since LXD depends on LXC, we cannot choose either one or the other. Hence, if we are using LXD, we are ultimately using LXC as well.

[Need assistance with a different issue? Our team is available 24/7.]

Conclusion

To sum up, our Support Techs introduced us to LXC vs LXD containers.