The purpose of using containers in software development is to create portable, lightweight environments that package applications with their dependencies. This encapsulation allows developers to ensure that software runs consistently across different computing environments, from development to production. Containers enable faster deployment, improve resource utilization, and simplify scaling and management of applications. Popular container technologies, such as Docker and Kubernetes, facilitate orchestration and automate scaling for modern microservices architectures, making development and operations (DevOps) practices more efficient.