Docker is a platform for packaging, deploying, and running applications. Docker applications run in containers that can be used on any system: a developer’s laptop, systems on-premises, or in the cloud.

However, “Kubernetes vs. Docker” is also a somewhat misleading phrase. When you break it down, these words don’t mean what many people intend them to mean, because Docker and Kubernetes aren’t direct competitors. Docker is a containerization platform, and Kubernetes is a container orchestrator for container platforms like Docker.