1. A computer-implemented method for managing containers in a container-based computer system, comprising: initializing a container, by a container manager running on a data processor in the container system, wherein the container is a software implementation of a computer that runs on top of a shared operating system, is allocated exclusive access to compute resources using a separate operating system kernel name space, and executes one or more applications on the shared operating system; determining, by the container manager, a computer resource bundle to be purchased for the container using virtual currency units; identifying multiple computer servers available to offer the computer resource bundle; determining a purchase price for the computer resource bundle, in virtual currency units, for each of the identified computer servers, wherein at least one determined purchase price is based at least in part on either an application-specific usage charge according to an allocated priority level for a containerized application or associated class of applications executing on the container, or a determined application-specific performance improvement that would result from allocating at least a part of the computer resource bundle to the containerized application, or both; automatically selecting, by the container manager, a first one of the identified computer servers based at least in part on the purchase price for the computer resource bundle for each of the computer servers; and allocating at least a part of the computer resource bundle from the first one of the identified computer servers to the containerized application executing on the container.