Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Ephemeral VMs in 1 Microsecond
Contribute to libriscv/drogon-sandbox development by creating an account on GitHub.
Ephemeral VMs in 1 Microsecond is a tool for developers and systems engineers who need to quickly spin up temporary virtual machines. It creates isolated VMs in microsecond timeframes, making it useful for testing… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Ephemeral VMs in 1 Microsecond launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
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 · its alternatives →
- 2
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Branchable computing by using a portable, lightweight, self-contained virtual machine - smol-machines/smolvm
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
"interesting" VM in C. Let's see how this goes. Contribute to tekknolagi/carp development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 5
Minimalist, dependency-free virtual machine sandbox for microcontrollers and other resource-constrained devices. Single C file, no dynamic memory allocations, asynchronous design, pure C99 - ringtailsoftware/uvm32
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
Build and run tiny vms from Dockerfiles. Small and sleek. - ottomatica/slim
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Build your own high performance LLM inference engine in C++ and CUDA - a smaller version of vLLM - jmaczan/tiny-vllm
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 8
Tonic Ephemeral▲183Spin up fully populated test databases in seconds
2024 · tonic.ai · its alternatives →
- 9
Create microVMs from OCI images. Contribute to slp/krunvm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 10
Spin up secure sandboxes in ~100 ms
Nov 2025 · hopx.ai · its alternatives →
- 11
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 · its alternatives →
- 12
Build and run tiny vms from Dockerfiles. Small and sleek. - GitHub - ottomatica/slim at 2.x
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 13
HVM1 (2022): a massively parallel, optimal functional runtime in Rust - HigherOrderCO/HVM1
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
:aerial_tramway: Minimal linux container runtime. Contribute to flouthoc/vas-quod development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
A wrapper for QEMU allowing the creation of virtual machines with shared folder, ssh, and disk creation support. - GitHub - ALSchwalm/transient: A wrapper for QEMU allowing the creation of virtual machines with shared folder, ssh, and disk creation support.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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repo of my sizecoding entries. Contribute to ilmenit/sizecoding development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Hi HN, To truly understand how operating systems and network protocols work, I decided to combine two classic learning tools: the xv6 teaching OS and a from-scratch TCP/IP stack. I'm excited to share the result: my own from-scratch TCP/IP networking stack running directly inside the xv6-riscv (https://github.com/pandax381/xv6-riscv-net) kernel. The project uses a modern virtio-net driver, allowing it to run seamlessly in QEMU and communicate with the host machine. Key features: - From-Scratch Stack: The core is powered by microps…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
This project contains no code from Linux, BSD, Minix, or any other OS. Everything up until this point is written entirely from scratch, including a pure microkernel (that only implements multiprocessor priority scheduling, memory management, and interprocess communication), a work-in-progress implementation of the standard C library, and a variety of servers that provide drivers and other essential OS functionality. At the time of writing this post, the servers provide drivers for the keyboard, NVMe SSDs (that works on real hardware), a Unix-like virtual file system (with a single root…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20
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 · its alternatives →
- 21
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
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22AV
Find information, resources and relevant links for liuchengxu.org. This domain may be for sale.
2017 · vim.liuchengxu.org · its alternatives →
- 23
A Fully Homomorphic Encryption Brainfuck virtual machine - f-prime/arcanevm
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Epho▲156Hey folks, Burak here. Epho is an API that allows running Claude Code, Codex or Opencode in a sandbox in the cloud. It abstracts away sandboxes, and allows running coding agents with a single HTTP request. Epho came out of our own struggles with building our own AI analyst: - Sandboxes give you bare machines; you need to configure them for agentic workloads. - Each agent behaves differently, and you need to build integrations with each of them. - Sandbox providers are not very reliable, which means you need to figure out a multi-provider strategy to avoid failures. - Logging, artifacts,…
Aug 2026 · epho.io · its alternatives →
Also compare
- Sub-millisecond VM sandboxes using CoW memory forking alternatives
- microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker alternatives
- Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines alternatives
- A small virtual machine written in C alternatives
- Tiny VM sandbox in C with apps in Rust, C and Zig alternatives
- Slim – Build and run tiny VMs from Dockerfiles 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 →