Rust Dockerfile Collection

This repository is designed to simplify the process of building Docker images for Rust projects. Its primary purpose is to compare the performance and memory footprint among three Rust build targets: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, x86_64-unknown-linux-musl, and x86_64-alpine-linux-musl.

Comparison of Rust Build Targets

Every image is built from the same source application (Actix Web 4 + Prometheus Metrics Endpoint) on the same machine (AKS single node B4s 16GB RAM)

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Dockerfile.glibc x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu

Pros:

• Fast response time (~0.3ms on the /metrics endpoint).
• Fast compile time (~6 minutes compiling dependencies + 6s compiling main app).

Cons:

• High runtime memory usage (startup: 6MB, peak: 25MB).
• Not able to use scratch as final image

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Dockerfile.alpine x86_64-alpine-linux-musl

Pros:

• Low runtime memory usage (startup: 3MB, peak: 8MB).
• Able to use scratch as final image

Cons:

• Slow response time (~3ms on the /metrics endpoint).
• Slow compile time (~10 minutes compiling dependencies + 1 minute compiling main app).

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Dockerfile.musl x86_64-unknown-linux-musl

Pros:

• Low runtime memory usage (startup: 3MB, peak: 6MB).
• Fast compile time (~6 minutes compiling dependencies + 30s compiling main app).
• Able to use scratch as final image

Cons:

• Medium response time (~0.7ms on the /metrics endpoint).

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This comparison provides valuable insights into the trade-offs between different Rust build targets when building Docker images for Rust projects. I haven't done any load-testing to compare runtime performance yet. Feel free to explore and use these Dockerfiles to better understand and optimize your Rust applications in terms of performance and memory footprint.