<p>I have a little bit of an idea about their differences, but it would be great to have expert opinions.</p>

<ul>
<li><a href="https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/containers/container_vms" rel="nofollow">Container-Optimized Google Compute Engine Images</a></li>
<li><a href="https://cloud.google.com/container-engine/" rel="nofollow">Google Container Engine</a></li>
</ul>

<p>Thanks in advance :)</p>

<p>Google Container Engine is a <a href="http://kubernetes.io/" rel="nofollow">kubernetes</a> backed cluster manager. It makes managing simple or complex docker based applications easy. Easy in the form of configuration, updating and scaling.</p>

<p>The container optimized compute engine images allows you to run docker containers on a single node. Note, you can create your own containerized cluster with this image if you wish, but if you're going down this path you should really reconsider container engine. </p>

<p>It's worth noting that the container optimized image also has aspects of kubernete's in the form of a kubelet.</p>
