OS-level virtualization is a type of virtualization that is kernel-based. It depends on a host OS to manage, create, and configure containers on the host server through a specialized kernel.

Another type of virtualization is bare bones virtualization; this type of virtualization differs from the OS-level virtualization by providing a small OS that is booted instead of a host OS such as Windows or Linux. This type of virtualization is used to reduce the resource overhead on the host OS.