Slow Docker build times in CI/CD pipelines
6/10 MediumDocker builds are slow on CI/CD pipelines, delaying deployment. Requires manual optimization (reordering Dockerfile, enabling BuildKit) that isn't default behavior.
Sources
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42764762
- https://blog.packagecloud.io/top-five-most-common-issues-with-docker-and-how-to-solve-them/
- https://collabnix.com/the-ultimate-docker-guide-thats-breaking-the-internet-in-2025-why-90-of-developers-are-getting-it-wrong-and-how-to-join-the-top-10/
- https://blog.rust-lang.org/2025/09/10/rust-compiler-performance-survey-2025-results/
- https://dev.to/srinivasamcjf/real-world-docker-challenges-every-devops-engineer-must-conquer-with-proven-fixes-2nf4
- https://www.siriusopensource.com/en-us/blog/what-are-problems-docker
- https://memo.d.foundation/playground/devbox/story/devbox-docker-adoption-and-challenges/
Collection History
Around 20% of participants responded that clean builds are a significant blocker for them. One area where clean builds might happen often is Continuous Integration (CI). 1495 respondents said that they use CI to build Rust code, and around 25% of them consider its performance to be a big blocker for them.
Caching of Docker layers is tricky, silly (you re-arrange a single command line and poof, it's invalidated, including all the layers after) and hard to make the most of.
Docker builds take forever on CI/CD pipelines... Reorder Dockerfile to cache dependencies first. Enable BuildKit for parallel, cache-efficient builds