:title: Docker Documentation
:description: An overview of the Docker Documentation
:keywords: containers, lxc, concepts, explanation

Introduction
------------

Docker is an open-source engine to easily create lightweight, portable,
self-sufficient containers from any application. The same container that a
developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale, in production, on
VMs, bare metal, OpenStack clusters, or any major infrastructure provider.

Common use cases for Docker include:

- Automating the packaging and deployment of web applications.
- Automated testing and continuous integration/deployment.
- Deploying and scaling databases and backend services in a service-oriented environment.
- Building custom PaaS environments, either from scratch or as an extension of off-the-shelf platforms like OpenShift or Cloud Foundry.

Please note Docker is currently under heavy development. It should not be used in production (yet).

For a high-level overview of Docker, please see the `Introduction
<http://www.docker.io/learn_more/>`_. When you're ready to start working with
Docker, we have a `quick start <http://www.docker.io/gettingstarted>`_
and a more in-depth guide to :ref:`ubuntu_linux` and other
:ref:`installation_list` paths including prebuilt binaries,
Rackspace and Amazon instances.

Enough reading! :ref:`Try it out! <running_examples>`
