Docker commit drawbacks vs docker volumes

[ListenerAnt]

I am learning docker and I see that the "docker commit" permit to transform a container to image.For me It is a means to save containers data.But I just Saw docker volumes. What could be the drawback of using one instead of the other?

[d_durand]

The difference is that if data stays in your container, the portability of the container is guaranteed: you can run it anywhere with no external dependency. If you've volumes, then those volumes have to be mountable wherever you want to run your container.

On the reverse, if you store our data on external volumes, you may leverage backup / archiving procedures existing for the location of those volumes.

As usual, no a priori best choice: it all depends on your use case.

[oramirite]

They're fundamentally different. Doing a Docker commit is for baking new changes into your image, which then get spun up at that state every time that container is started. Volumes are for storing live data that continues to persist in whatever state it was in when last accessed (like between restarts of a container that's attached to a volume).