Docker is an open platform for developing, shipping, and running applications. It aims to solve the problem of maintaining different application versions across multiple platforms and servers. Docker allows applications to be packaged into standardized units called containers that contain all their dependencies so they can run reliably from one computing environment to another. Containers operate much more efficiently at runtime than virtual machines, using less memory and CPU resources. Docker images provide a lightweight template for creating containers which bundle application code and dependencies. This allows applications to be easily deployed and scaled across multiple machines.