What is the difference between UBI and Atomic Base Image

Question

My company is RHEL customer, and I need base container images for:

1. Portable CI/CD build environments
2. Running services with minimal dependencies (Go, Java, Python)

Looking at these 2 docker files, they are identical. Is there any difference in support model, or maintenance?

https://catalog.redhat.com/software/containers/ubi7/ubi-minimal/5c3594f7dd19c775cddfa777?gti-tabs=unauthenticated&container-tabs=dockerfile

https://catalog.redhat.com/software/containers/rhel7/rhel-atomic/58b9d66f4b339a07cca5359e?container-tabs=dockerfile

Answer 1

By the docs of RHEL

The legacy rhel7-minimal (or rhel7-atomic) and UBI ubi7-minimal images are stripped-down RHEL images to use when a bare-bones base image in desired. RHEL minimal images provide a base for your own container images that is less than half the size of the standard image, while still being able to draw on RHEL software repositories and maintain any compliance requirements your software has.

BOTH

• Includes Microdnf.
• Not YUM.

ATOMIC

• Size: 75MB; composed of 81 packages. - https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-enterprise-linux-atomic-base-image
• Several of the traditional operating system components such as python an systemd have been removed. - https://catalog.redhat.com/software/containers/rhel7/rhel-atomic/58b9d66f4b339a07cca5359e?container-tabs=dockerfile
• Minimal dependencies of Java and Go - https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-enterprise-linux-atomic-base-image

UBI-MINIMAL

• Size: 79.1MB - 83MB; composed of 91 packages. - https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1703082

• Designed for applications that contain their own dependencies (Python, Node.js, .NET, etc.) - https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/introducing-red-hat-universal-base-image

• This image is maintained by Red Hat and updated regularly. - https://catalog.redhat.com/software/containers/ubi7/ubi-minimal/5c3594f7dd19c775cddfa777?gti-tabs=unauthenticated&container-tabs=dockerfile

I personally would choose UBI-Minimal, but, think you should also take a look at the UBI FAQ to know the details, pros and cons of each image depending on your business - https://developers.redhat.com/articles/ubi-faq#ubi_details