I'm not sure, I think I was hoping that the guy who gave us Cap'n Proto would come up with a novel and awesome approach tocontainerization. :)

But to come up with some differentiation aspects: was it using Linux containers or lower-level virtualization? (it's using containers). Did it provide a powerful new way to automatically containerize an app? (it's not automatic)

Yeah, the goal wasn't to create a novel and awesome approach to containerization, but rather a novel and awesome approach to web app hosting and deployment. Containerization is just a tool towards that end.

I feel like everyone fixates on the containerization aspect mostly because Docker is hot right now and containerization is all they do. It's hard to get people to understand that containerization is not the point of Sandstorm. Putting servers under the control of end users is the point.