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Python apps have worse performance, bigger image size and longer build times on Alpine Linux:

https://pythonspeed.com/articles/alpine-docker-python/

For running applications in production, Alpine Linux is harmful and should be avoided. Getting a smaller container image is not worth trading mucl for glibc.

To a Docker outsider, to me this implies that Alpine for testing and non-Alpine for production is not harmful. Is that right? Wasn't having a unified environment half the point of using Docker? Doesn't two different base systems just open you up to a load of headaches? If so, then isn't it more of a "Alpine Linux as a Docker base is harmful" situation?

Thank you for sharing that! It has never occurred to me but that makes sense.

For my Go/Haskell binaries, I usually do need to make changes in order to get them working. The smaller image size is essential in my use case though so I pay that penalty.

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