Alternatives
Products that do what Clone, a small Rust VMM, forks VMs in under 20ms via CoW does
We needed a secure, multi-tenant way to offer shell accounts to users, but most VMMs were using too much memory and containers are unsafe. With clone, VMs are now more memory efficient than containers in most cases. Since many other projects on HN looked like they were doing this too, open sourcing this was the right thing to do. Feel free to use in whole or in part as you see fit!
- 1SM
I wanted to see how fast an isolated code sandbox could start if I never had to boot a fresh VM. So instead of launching a new microVM per execution, I boot Firecracker once with Python and numpy already loaded, then snapshot the full VM state. Every execution after that creates a new KVM VM backed by a `MAP_PRIVATE` mapping of the snapshot memory, so Linux gives me copy-on-write pages automatically. That means each sandbox starts from an already-running Python process inside a real VM, runs the code, and exits. These are real KVM VMs, not containers: separate guest kernel, separate guest…
Mar 2026 · github.com
- 2AC
I think that asdf (https://asdf-vm.com) was a great idea for a project. It helps consolidate installing and running different programming languages into a similar UX. It also is built with a plugin interface that makes it easy to build support for new languages. However it is so slow. I was just testing `node -v` and it was taking ~900ms. That kind of overhead is completely unusable. My shell prompt uses runtimes inside of it for various things so this effectively makes every command take multiple seconds to complete. So I rebuilt it in Rust but using the same plugin ecosystem so…
2023
- 3HH
2021 · github.com
- 4WA
Hi HN community, I’m Zach, founder and CEO of Warp, and am excited to show you Warp, a fast Rust-based terminal that’s easy to use and built for teams. As of today, Warp is in public beta and any Mac user can download it. It works with bash, zsh, and fish. The terminal’s teletype-like interface has made it hard for the CLI to thrive. After 20 years of programming, I still find it hard to copy a command’s output; I always forget how to use `tar`; and I always have to relearn how to move my cursor. To fix fundamental accessibility issues, I believe we need to start innovating on the terminal,…
2022 · warp.dev
- 5SB
2019 · github.com
- 6B2
This is a long-running project that started as the proverbial need to scratch my own itch and then somehow evolved into a full-time job of the past 6 years. Link: https://bvckup2.com I thought I'd do a Show HN for two reasons. 1. I obviously want to show my baby to those who haven't seen it. Its primary purpose is to do very fast file replication. If you are familiar with "robocopy /mir" - same idea, but on steroids. Lots of them. It can be used for both mirroring and archiving backups, among other things. It is light, very small and it is really quite fast. Half of the…
2019 · bvckup2.com
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- 8LT
hey guys. the other day i was migrating hosting providers and i just needed something not too heavy and convenient to spin up my backups for awhile and realised there is almost nothing out there. kimchi hasn't been updated for years and cockpit is heavy. so here's something i came up with in a couple hours because of a sudden urge, nothing fancy just basic creation with cloud init, lifecycle management and image/storage, but it's modern-ish and it compiles to a 8.4mb binary inclusive of the embedded web UI, CLI and API, and only dep is libvirt.
Sep 2025 · github.com
- 9MP
Hi HN! Excited to launch machine0, a CLI that makes it easy to create, provision and snapshot persistent NixOS (& Ubuntu) VMs. You can think of machine0 as a modern VPS provider. VMs stay on unless switched-off (with 99.99% uptime), they have static IPs and HTTPS endpoints, 1-60 vCPU, up to 240GB RAM and optionally GPUs. The CLI provides commands to manage lifecycle, snapshots and also provision the VMs using Nix flakes or Ansible playbooks. VMs are priced by the minute of usage. What makes machine0 unique is that it has first class support for NixOS! In a nutshell, NixOS lets you define…
Jun 2026 · machine0.io
- 10IW
2023 · github.com
- 11TV
Dec 2025 · github.com
- 12VQ
2020 · github.com
- 13AD
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
- 14LF
Shuru is a lightweight sandbox that spins up Linux VMs on macOS using Apple's Virtualization.framework. Boots in about a second on Apple Silicon, and everything is ephemeral by default. There's a checkpoint system for when you do want to persist state, and sandboxes run without network access unless you explicitly allow it. Single Rust binary, no dependencies. Built it for sandboxing AI agent code execution, but it works well for anything where you need a disposable Linux environment.
Feb 2026 · shuru.run
- 15KD
I've built this to make it easy to host your own infra for lightweight VMs at large scale. Intended for exec of AI-generated code, for CICD runners, or for off-chain AI DApps. Mainly to avoid Docker-in-Docker dangers and mess. Super easy to use with CLI / Python SDK, friendly to AI engs who usually don't like to mess with VM orchestration and networking too much. Defense-in-depth philosophy. Would love to get feedback (and contributors: clear & exciting roadmap!), thx
Oct 2025 · github.com
- 16RA
2019 · github.com
- 17PR
2024 · github.com
- 18LV
Hello HN! We've been working on a new hypervisor https://kwarantine.xyz that can run strongly isolated containers. This is still a WIP, but we wanted to give the community an idea about our approach, its benefits, and various use cases it unlocks. Today, VMs are used to host containers, and make up for the lack of strong security as well as kernel isolation in containers. This work adds this missing security piece in containers. We plan on launching a free private beta soon. Meanwhile, we'd deeply appreciate any feedback, and happy to answer any questions here or on our slack…
2021
- 19ZS
Mar 2026 · github.com
- 20FA
I built Fresh to challenge the status quo that terminal editing must require a steep learning curve or endless configuration. My goal was to create a fast, resource-efficient TUI editor with the usability and features of a modern GUI editor (like a command palette, mouse support, and LSP integration). Core Philosophy: - Ease-of-Use: Fundamentally non-modal. Prioritizes standard keybindings and a minimal learning curve. - Efficiency: Uses a lazy-loading piece tree to avoid loading huge files into RAM - reads only what's needed for user interactions. Coded in Rust. - Extensibility: Uses…
Dec 2025 · sinelaw.github.io
- 21FN
2013 · food.hypertexthero.com
- 22WB
Over the past few months, as we scaled our internal AI Agents, we hit a dead end: Running LLM-generated arbitrary code in Docker is basically running naked on security due to container escape risks. But using full traditional VMs takes minutes to boot and eats too much memory to support high-density concurrency. We loved the developer experience of SaaS sandboxes on the market, but they are closed-source, expensive, and have too high a barrier to entry for self-hosting. So, our team decided to build our own. After months of grinding, using RustVMM and KVM, we built a blazing-fast,…
Apr 2026 · github.com
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- 24EV
2024 · github.com
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