Python Base Image Test

This repository contains experimental results to determine the most suitable Python base image for a production environment. It compares the performance and size of three different base images:

• python:3.12-alpine
• python:3.12-slim
• python:3.12 (full)

Key Features

• Multi-stage builds: Reduces final image size by separating build and runtime stages.
• Bytecode enabled: Optionally enables .pyc file generation to improve Python startup time.
• Security testing: Basic security checks are included to identify vulnerabilities in the container image.

How to Build & Run

Before using this repository, make sure Docker is installed on your system. Then run the following commands in sequence:

Build Docker Image

./build.sh

Run Docker Compose

docker compose up -d

Run Database Migration

./migrate.sh

Run Benchmark

This benchmarks the running container using wrk and saves the results in wrk_results.csv.

./benchmark.sh

Image Size Comparison

Base Image	Multi-Stage Build	Bytecode Enabled	Image Size	Build Time
alpine	❌	❌	100.71 MB	3s
alpine	✅	✅	87.05 MB	29s
alpine	✅	❌	87.05 MB	26s
slim	❌	❌	171.35 MB	2s
slim	✅	✅	157.71 MB	22s
slim	✅	❌	157.71 MB	20s
full	❌	✅	1015.89 MB	2s

ℹ️ Enabling Python bytecode (.pyc files) may improve performance by avoiding source recompilation at runtime.

ℹ️ Multi-stage builds significantly reduce image size without sacrificing runtime performance.

Performance Benchmark

The benchmark is based on the average of three test runs using wrk, configured with 2 threads, 10 concurrent connections, and a duration of 10 seconds per test.

image	requests/sec	latency
alpine	259,77	38,08
alpine-multi	261,85	37,81
alpine-multi-bytecode	262,34	37,71
slim	283,03	34,97
slim-multi	282,86	35,00
slim-multi-bytecode	278,98	35,47
full	278,10	35,57

Security

To check for known security vulnerabilities in your Docker image, you can use Trivy, a simple and fast vulnerability scanner.

Run the following command:

trivy image <image-name>

Sample Results

Below are example scan results comparing the three Python base images used in this project:

flask-app:alpine (alpine 3.22.1)
================================
Total: 1 (UNKNOWN: 0, LOW: 0, MEDIUM: 0, HIGH: 0, CRITICAL: 1)

flask-app:slim (debian 12.11)
=============================
Total: 106 (UNKNOWN: 1, LOW: 74, MEDIUM: 22, HIGH: 7, CRITICAL: 2)

flask-app:full (debian 12.11)
=============================
Total: 1711 (UNKNOWN: 6, LOW: 775, MEDIUM: 666, HIGH: 253, CRITICAL: 11)

Dependencies

• Flask
• Flask-SQLAlchemy
• Flask-Migrate
• Gunicorn
• Psycopg2-binary

License

This project is open source and available under the terms of the MIT License.

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Thank you for checking out this repository!
Feel free to fork, contribute, or open an issue if you have feedback or suggestions.