Face off: VMs vs. Containers vs Firecracker
04-16, 11:00–11:30 (Europe/Amsterdam), The Warehouse

When AWS released Firecracker in 2018, developers thought the potential was going to be limitless. Four years later, the project is much more mature and can even be integrated into Kubernetes, but when should you use it?

This talk covers the fundamentals of a Linux Operating System, and how isolation varies with legacy VMs, containers and microVMs.

You’ll learn how to integrate with Firecracker directly, or with existing cloud native looks like containerd, CNI and the OCI image spec.

There’ll be a live demo of microVMs in a real application developed by OpenFaaS, and a lab in a GitHub repo you can explore on your own after the talk.


Containers have limits to their level of isolation, and there are some alternatives like Kata containers and gVisor, however, sometimes a VM is required, and sometimes not everything fits into the existing Kubernetes APIs.

This talk will equip the audience with a knowledge of what is different - and why, and how to start using microVMs with existing CNCF projects.

Alex is a respected expert on serverless and cloud native computing. He founded OpenFaaS, one of the most popular open-source serverless projects, where he has built a community through writing, speaking, and extensive personal engagement. As a technologist, he helps companies around the world build great developer experiences and navigate the cloud native landscape.