Estimate achievable network throughput between containers on a Docker network.
Container network throughput is limited by the host NIC speed minus Docker networking overhead (iptables, NAT, veth pairs). Formula: effective = hostNIC × (1 − overhead%). Per-flow bandwidth is shared across concurrent connections.
Effective Throughput
effective = hostNIC × (1 − overhead%) / concurrentFlows
Yes — traffic between containers on the same bridge network stays local (through the Linux bridge/veth pairs), never hitting the physical NIC, achieving near line-rate with minimal latency.
--net=host bypasses Docker networking entirely, giving containers direct host NIC access with zero overhead, but sacrifices network isolation.