We reduced a real Node.js production Docker image from 1.2GB to 78MB (opens in new tab)

(the-practical-developer.online)

17 pointsmilkikomasiko1d ago3 comments

3 comments

We had issues running our Node app on alpine. Specifically the dns lookup for our API calls were taking several hundred milliseconds *every* time.

Switching to debian reduced it to microseconds.

Does anyone here know what I was doing wrong with alpine?

Alpine is a bad idea for a non-trivial application written in Python, Node.js, or any other interpreted language.

Too many weird edge cases to deal with, especially related to Alpine using musl libc instead of glibc.

At best, your builds are slower.

At worst, certain code paths are broken.

Alpine is a great choice.. Provided you understand what’s included, and the ramifications it has on the stack you’re trying to work with.

99 times out of 100 it’s a terrible choice for an enterprise.

I had this experience as well, nowadays I use Debian slim. Too much random breakage in Alpine.

Musl is much less optimized than glibc, random example: https://andygrove.io/2020/05/why-musl-extremely-slow/

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