Pangolin Image Size

[boomam]

Hi,
Is it normal for the unpacked pangolin image to be so large?
 
For example, if i run 'docker history' against the 1.13.1 image, there's a layer over 1.13GB in size, another at 310Mb and another at 146MB -
 

IMAGE          CREATED        CREATED BY                                      SIZE      COMMENT
9e6709b27363   44 hours ago   CMD ["npm" "run" "start"]                       0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY public ./public # buildkit                 9.35MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY server/db/names.json ./dist/names.json …   36.6kB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   RUN /bin/sh -c chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pangc…   39B       buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY ./cli/wrapper.sh /usr/local/bin/pangctl…   39B       buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY /app/init ./dist/init # buildkit           187kB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY /app/dist ./dist # buildkit                5.35MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY /app/.next/static ./.next/static # buil…   5.3MB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY /app/.next/standalone ./ # buildkit        91.9MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   RUN /bin/sh -c npm ci --omit=dev && npm cach…   1.13GB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   COPY package*.json ./ # buildkit                977kB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   RUN /bin/sh -c apk add --no-cache curl tzdat…   310MB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      44 hours ago   WORKDIR /app                                    0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     CMD ["node"]                                    0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     ENTRYPOINT ["docker-entrypoint.sh"]             0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/ # …   388B      buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     RUN /bin/sh -c apk add --no-cache --virtual …   5.36MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     ENV YARN_VERSION=1.22.22                        0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     RUN /bin/sh -c addgroup -g 1000 node     && …   146MB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      8 days ago     ENV NODE_VERSION=24.11.1                        0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      9 days ago     CMD ["/bin/sh"]                                 0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      9 days ago     ADD alpine-minirootfs-3.23.0-x86_64.tar.gz /…   8.44MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0

For the larger layers -

• 310MB - RUN /bin/sh -c apk add --no-cache curl tzdata python3 make g++ # buildkit
• 1.13Gb - RUN /bin/sh -c npm ci --omit=dev && npm cache clean --force # buildkit

Doing some poking around, there's some efficiencies to be had here by combining the run layers, clearing caches after various commands.
For example, unpacked, 1.13.1 is 1.71GB in size.

By adjusting the Dockerfile as such...

FROM node:24-alpine AS builder

WORKDIR /app

ARG BUILD=oss
ARG DATABASE=sqlite

RUN apk add --no-cache curl tzdata python3 make g++ git

COPY package*.json ./

RUN npm ci

COPY . .

RUN echo "export * from \"./$DATABASE\";" > server/db/index.ts \
 && echo "export const driver: \"pg\" | \"sqlite\" = \"$DATABASE\";" >> server/db/index.ts \
 && echo "export const build = \"$BUILD\" as \"saas\" | \"enterprise\" | \"oss\";" > server/build.ts \
 && if [ "$BUILD" = "oss" ]; then cp tsconfig.oss.json tsconfig.json; \
    elif [ "$BUILD" = "saas" ]; then cp tsconfig.saas.json tsconfig.json; \
    elif [ "$BUILD" = "enterprise" ]; then cp tsconfig.enterprise.json tsconfig.json; fi \
 && if [ "$BUILD" = "oss" ]; then rm -rf server/private; fi

RUN if [ "$DATABASE" = "pg" ]; then \
      npx drizzle-kit generate --dialect postgresql --schema ./server/db/pg/schema --out init; \
    else \
      npx drizzle-kit generate --dialect $DATABASE --schema ./server/db/$DATABASE/schema --out init; \
    fi

RUN npm run next:build \
 && node esbuild.mjs -e server/index.ts -o dist/server.mjs -b $BUILD \
 && if [ "$DATABASE" = "pg" ]; then \
      node esbuild.mjs -e server/setup/migrationsPg.ts -o dist/migrations.mjs; \
    else \
      node esbuild.mjs -e server/setup/migrationsSqlite.ts -o dist/migrations.mjs; \
    fi

RUN npm run build:cli

RUN test -f dist/server.mjs

RUN npm prune --production \
 && find node_modules -name test -type d -exec rm -rf {} + \
 && find node_modules -name tests -type d -exec rm -rf {} + \
 && find node_modules -name example -type d -exec rm -rf {} + \
 && find node_modules -name examples -type d -exec rm -rf {} + \
 && find node_modules -name "*.md" -type f -delete

FROM node:24-alpine AS runner

WORKDIR /app

RUN apk add --no-cache curl tzdata

COPY --from=builder /app/node_modules ./node_modules

COPY --from=builder /app/.next/standalone ./
COPY --from=builder /app/.next/static ./.next/static
COPY --from=builder /app/dist ./dist
COPY --from=builder /app/init ./dist/init

COPY --from=builder /app/cli/wrapper.sh /usr/local/bin/pangctl
RUN chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pangctl ./dist/cli.mjs

COPY public ./public
COPY server/db/names.json ./dist/names.json

CMD ["npm", "run", "start"]

...reduces the image size down to 1.33GB -

• A 260Mb-ish saving against the layer that was about 300MB.
• A 100Mb-ish saving against the layer that was 1.13GB.

IMAGE          CREATED          CREATED BY                                      SIZE      COMMENT
343aa9ca574b   3 minutes ago    CMD ["npm" "run" "start"]                       0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY server/db/names.json ./dist/names.json …   36.6kB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY public ./public # buildkit                 9.35MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    RUN /bin/sh -c chmod +x /usr/local/bin/pangc…   175kB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/cli/wrapper.sh /usr/local/bin/pang…   39B       buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/init ./dist/init # buildkit           187kB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/dist ./dist # buildkit                5.35MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/.next/static ./.next/static # buil…   5.3MB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/.next/standalone ./ # buildkit        91.9MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      3 minutes ago    COPY /app/node_modules ./node_modules # buil…   1.05GB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      15 minutes ago   RUN /bin/sh -c apk add --no-cache curl tzdat…   5.92MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      15 minutes ago   WORKDIR /app                                    0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       CMD ["node"]                                    0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       ENTRYPOINT ["docker-entrypoint.sh"]             0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/ # …   388B      buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       RUN /bin/sh -c apk add --no-cache --virtual …   5.36MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       ENV YARN_VERSION=1.22.22                        0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       RUN /bin/sh -c addgroup -g 1000 node     && …   146MB     buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      2 days ago       ENV NODE_VERSION=24.12.0                        0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      10 days ago      CMD ["/bin/sh"]                                 0B        buildkit.dockerfile.v0
<missing>      10 days ago      ADD alpine-minirootfs-3.23.0-x86_64.tar.gz /…   8.44MB    buildkit.dockerfile.v0

To be clear, other than seeing if the container actually runs, I've not tested if Pangolin still works - so this is all theoretical, to be fair, but as a minor POC of reducing the image size, this seems to be a step in the right direction perhaps.
 
Is this something we can look into perhaps in the next few releases, as 1.7Gb+ sizes for images is getting a little large...

[oschwartz10612]

Hi! This is good work thank you. Would you be interested in opening a PR for this and we could discuss and test there? We are extremely interested in getting the container size down but have not had the time to invest. Unfortunately node_modules is a killer but something must be going wrong for it to be this big. Thanks!

[javapapo]

Hello I am running pangolin on a small VPS with 10GB of disk space - i just realized today about the exploded size of pangolin and while searching I ended up here - I was wondering if anyone else had noticed it. thanks @boomam

[boomam]

Missed the notification for this - @oschwartz10612, I'll see i can find some time over the holidays, i had some more ideas to further reduce.

[boomam]

@oschwartz10612 - i am assuming that the latest 1.14 release has added some of the above observations, as the image size is now down to 1.3Gb?
Or did you do something different?

[oschwartz10612]

Yeah I implemented a couple of things but much room to improve! :}

[yann117]

Currently, I see the size is about 1.1 GB.
Looking at the starting point of this discussion, it seems we should be happy... but actually, I came here because I was concerned it was taking more than 1 GB.

The bigger part is of course:

743MB     COPY /app/node_modules ./node_modules

Do we really need all the Node.js modules folder, including documentation, Git history, sample/test files ?

I don't know if that can be applied/is relevant, but looking into this guide seems interesting:
https://dev.to/polliog/your-docker-images-are-bigger-than-they-need-to-be-2ca

In particular, for that area, the section "Problem #2: Copying Unnecessary Files".

Below is an AI analysis of this concern with possible fixes

The COPY /app/node_modules layer is 709 MiB (572 packages), about two thirds of the 1.1 GB image. I downloaded the layers and checked what is reachable at runtime. I listed the external imports of dist/server.mjs, dist/migrations.mjs and dist/cli.mjs. esbuild-node-externals leaves every dependency external, so these imports are everything the server can load from node_modules. I then followed dependencies, optionalDependencies and peerDependencies through node_modules.

	Size
Shipped node_modules	709 MiB
Reachable from dist/*.mjs	455 MiB
…of which only via next	291 MiB
Reachable from dist/*.mjs, excluding next	164 MiB

1. ~254 MiB is never imported by the server. These packages are only used by the web UI, which is already compiled into .next:
react-icons 84, lucide-react 33, @swc/core-linux-x64-gnu 31 (via next-intl, build-time only), react-aria 15, date-fns 10, @devolutions/iron-remote-desktop-rdp 10, recharts 7, @reduxjs/toolkit 6, @xterm/xterm 6, react-stately 6 (MiB).

2. The Next.js compiler ships in the image. @next/swc-linux-x64-gnu (92 MiB) isn't needed with dev: false, and the image contains no next.config.ts that would need transpiling. Next's own standalone output excludes it.

3. The standalone output is fully duplicated. .next/standalone adds 34 MiB of traced node_modules. Every one of those files also exists at the same path in the full node_modules layer, so those bytes are stored twice. The full next package (176 MiB) is also shipped alongside that traced subset.

Possible fixes

1. Move UI-only packages to devDependencies. Next bundles them at build time, and the standalone trace keeps whatever server-side rendering needs. Saves ~250 MiB.
2. In the builder stage, run rm -rf node_modules/@next/swc-* node_modules/@swc/core* after npm ci --omit=dev. Saves ~90 MiB more.
3. Biggest win: stop copying the full npm ci --omit=dev tree. Instead, trace dist/*.mjs with @vercel/nft, the same tool Next uses for standalone output, and copy only the traced files on top of .next/standalone. That would put node_modules at ≤ 200 MiB instead of 709 MiB, bringing the image from ~1.1 GB to ~0.6 GB.

[oschwartz10612]

Next release will make it as small as we can I think around 500mb! Closing.