github.com/hashicorp/packer@v1.14.3/website/content/docs/intro/index.mdx (about)

     1  ---
     2  page_title: Introduction to Packer
     3  description: Packer is a community tool for creating identical machine images for multiple platforms from a single source configuration. Learn about Packer benefits and how to get started.
     4  ---
     5  
     6  # Introduction to Packer
     7  
     8  This introduction describes Packer benefits and how you can get started with it. 
     9  
    10  ## What is Packer?
    11  
    12  Packer is a community tool for creating identical machine images for multiple
    13  platforms from a single source configuration. Packer is lightweight, runs on
    14  every major operating system, and is highly performant, creating machine images
    15  for multiple platforms in parallel. Packer does not replace configuration
    16  management like Chef or Puppet. In fact, when building images, Packer is able to
    17  use tools like Chef or Puppet to install software onto the image.
    18  
    19  A _machine image_ is a single static unit that contains a pre-configured
    20  operating system and installed software which is used to quickly create new
    21  running machines. Machine image formats change for each platform. Some examples
    22  include AMIs for EC2, VMDK and VMX files for VMware, and OVF exports for VirtualBox.
    23  
    24  ## HCP Packer
    25  
    26  For information about using HCP Packer to store metadata about build artifacts, refer to the
    27  [HCP Packer documentation](/hcp/docs/packer) or [sign into HCP](https://portal.cloud.hashicorp.com/sign-in) to explore HCP Packer features.