Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to BananaOS, vibecoded operating system that boots on a 486 with ~11MB RAM
My 10-year-old son has been deep in low-level rabbit holes lately and ended up vibe-coding his own operating system. Since he’s still a kid and not on HN himself, I’m posting this on his behalf with his permission. This started as curiosity about how computers actually boot, and somehow escalated into writing a kernel, building a GUI, and setting up CI that produces a bootable OS image on every commit. BananaOS is a small experimental operating system built mainly for learning and exploration of low-level systems programming. It currently targets i386 BIOS systems and is designed to run on…
BananaOS is an experimental operating system designed to run on minimal hardware, including 486 processors with approximately 11MB of RAM. Built primarily as a learning project in low-level systems programming, it… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1
Hi HN, I’m Dvir, a young developer. Last year, I got rejected after a job interview because I lacked some CPU knowledge. After that, I decided to deepen my understanding in the low level world and learn how things work under the hood. I decided to try and create an OS in C and ASM as a way to broaden my knowledge in this area. This took me on the most interesting ride, where I’ve learned about OS theory and low level programming on a whole new level. I’ve spent hours upon hours, blood and tears, reading different OS theory blogs, learning low level concepts, debugging, testing and working on…
Oct 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
This is my operating system that I've been working for the past 2 years. All of the code is written exclusively by me except from ported software. banan-os has a monolithic kernel targeting x86 (i686) and x86_64 architectures. The project consists of bootloader, kernel and userspace libraries (libc, libGUI, libFont, ...). It also uses my custom C++ standard library partly based on stdc++. Currently I have basic TTY and GUI environment with some of the basic UNIX utilities like cp, ls and stat. I have basic support for USB (keyboard/mouse/storage), disks (NVMe, AHCI), custom…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
VibeOS is a retro operating system that boots on qemu and Pi Zero 2W. I built this with Claude code in about 4 weeks.
Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
TempleOS is an experimental OS designed to be simple and self-hosted with a JIT compiler. I was mesmerized by it but didn't like the hassle of using virtual machines to boot it up and move files around from the virtual drive. My project lets you run TempleOS as an app of some sort instead of using a virtual machine to run it - this brings a lot of benefits like speed, seamless filesystem integration (virtual machine development with stock TempleOS is really a pain.), command-line mode where you can code in HolyC on the command line instead of TempleOS' GUI. Its user-space nature lets it do…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5IM
I've wanted to make my own OS since I started programming. Now, 5 years later, I did it (kind of). Sure, it is really basic, has very little functionality, but I made it and I'm proud of that. Oh, and I'm just 16 btw.
2025 · jotalea.com.ar · its alternatives →
- 6
A minimal RISC-V 32-bit OS written in Zig. Contribute to botirkhaltaev/pico-os development by creating an account on GitHub.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7
I've been working on this for ~3 months now, with pretty slow progress to be honest. So far I've got an ATA PIO mode hard disk driver, a FAT32 file system, a real time clock driver, and of course the essentials (interrupts, keyboard, pixel graphics). Kernel panics also cause a blue screen of death xD. It uses a bitmap physical memory allocator, and I'm fixing some issues with paging at the moment as a work towards running userspace applications. I'd be interested to see your thoughts on it :D
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
An application innovation platform delivering a comprehensive experience with tools to empower organizations to modernize and build new applications, accelerate AI adoption, and fuel growth.
2013 · coreos.com · its alternatives →
- 9
The operating system for smart frames. Runs on a Raspberry Pi or ESP32, renders on e-ink, HDMI and LCD displays. Standalone, self-hosted, or managed from FrameOS Cloud - everything renders on the device.
2024 · frameos.net · its alternatives →
- 10
A "living" Linux process with no memory. Contribute to izabera/zeromaps development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11
CreateOS▲532Build and deploy apps from any AI coding tool, in one place
Feb 2026 · createos.nodeops.network · its alternatives →
- 12
I pretty much always have a kernel project going on, and have been that way for decades. Over the past couple of years, that's been Anos, which has gotten further along than any of my previous hobby kernels, supporting IPC, multitasking, SMP (x86-64 only right now) and running on real hardware. LLMs (mostly Claude Code) have been used during development, but I learned early on that it's not _great_ at code at this level, so I've restricted its use to mostly documentation and tests. There's _a little_ AI code in the user space, but I have a strict "no AI code" rule in the kernel itself. I…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
Hi there! I've been on-and-off working on TacOS for a few months, which follows some UNIX-derived concepts (exec/fork, unix-style VFS, etc) and is now able to run a port of Doom, with a fairly small amount of modifications, using my from-scratch libc. The performance is actually decent compared to what I expected. Very interested to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
A pretty simple Operating System for my High School Project - aswinmohanme/ultronOS
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Finally got my hobby OS up and running on real hardware. I love the old IBM thinkpads, so thought it was the perfect machine to get it working on. Been working on it for quite some time now, but this has been a big milestone!
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Hello HN! Showing off the first version of Munal OS, an experimental operating system I have been writing in Rust on and off for the past few years. https://github.com/Askannz/munal-os It's an unikernel design that is compiled as a single EFI binary and does not use virtual address spaces for process isolation. Instead, applications are compiled to WASM and run inside of an embedded WASM engine. Other features: * Fully graphical interface in HD resolution with mouse and keyboard support * Desktop shell with window manager and contextual radial menus * PCI and VirtIO…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 17
Christmas tree demo on bare PC hardware (no OS), in 16-bit assembly - cfallin/treeos
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Hello HN, I've been working on a simple OS for tinkering and running bare metal apps on vintage PCs. Since I couldn't quite decide whether to target pure 16-bit, or slightly more capable 32-bit machines, I ended up with two separate versions: - GentleOS/32 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos32) works on i386+, requires 4MB of RAM and VGA display supporting 640x480x16 mode or any 256-color VESA mode. - GentleOS/16 (https://github.com/luke8086/gentleos) works on 80186+, requires less than 192KB of RAM and a CGA display supporting 320x200x4…
Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
Contribute to cmc-labo/tinyos-rtos development by creating an account on GitHub.
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20MO
2016 · minocacorp.com · its alternatives →
- 21
A multitasking monolithic Kernel based x86 targeting Operating System written in C# from scratch aiming for high-level implementation of drivers in managed environment. - amaneureka/AtomOS
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
To try it out, simply build the project yourself from source, or use attached bootable ISO image of the system (in Releases on Github) and run it in QEMU. https://blog.vxn.dev/rou2exos-rusted-edition
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 23
(sorry about double posting, I forgot to put Show HN in front in the original https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863689 thread) Hey all, As a follow up to my relatively successful series in x86 Assembly of last year[1], I started making an OS that fits in a boot sector. I am purposefully not doing chain loading or multi-stage to see how much I can squeeze out of 510bytes. It comes with a file system, a shell, and a simple process management. Enough to write non-trivial guest applications, like a text editor and even some games. It's a lot of fun! It comes with an SDK and…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Micro Kernel / Bootloader for Ben Eater's 6502 Computer - janroesner/sixty5o2
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- MyraOS – My 32-bit operating system in C and ASM (Hack Club project) alternatives
- Banan-OS, an Unix-like operating system written from scratch alternatives
- I vibecoded an ARM64 operating system that boots on real hardware alternatives
- Running TempleOS in user space without virtualization alternatives
- I made my own OS from scratch because I was bored alternatives
- I wrote an OS in 1000 lines of Zig alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →