Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to machine0 – Persistent NixOS VMs You Control from the CLI

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…

machine0 is a CLI tool for creating and managing persistent NixOS and Ubuntu virtual machines with a modern VPS-like interface. Users can provision VMs ranging from 1-60 vCPUs with up to 240GB RAM and optional GPU… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.

1
Sub-millisecond VM sandboxes using CoW memory forking▲311
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
Lume – OS lightweight CLI for MacOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon▲309
We just open-sourced Lume - a tool we built after hitting walls with existing virtualization options on Apple Silicon. No GUI, no complex stacks - just a single binary that lets you spin up macOS or Linux VMs via CLI or API. Why we built Lume: - Run native macOS VMs in 1 command, using Apple Virtualization.Framework: `lume run macos-sequoia-vanilla:latest` - Prebuilt images on https://ghcr.io/trycua (macOS, Ubuntu on ARM) - API server to manage VMs programmatically `POST /lume/vms` - A python SDK on github.com/trycua/pylume Run prebuilt macOS images in just…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
3
Lume 0.2 – Build and Run macOS VMs with unattended setup▲154
Hey HN, Lume is an open-source CLI for running macOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon. Since launch (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42908061), we've been using it to run AI agents in isolated macOS environments. We needed VMs that could set themselves up, so we built that. Here's what's new in 0.2: *Unattended Setup* – Go from IPSW to a fully configured VM without touching the keyboard. We built a VNC + OCR system that clicks through macOS Setup Assistant automatically. No more manual setup before pushing to a registry: lume create my-vm --os macos --ipsw latest…
Jan 2026 · cua.ai · its alternatives →
4
Huddle01 VMs▲435
Virtual Machines for Your Agents
May 2026 · get.huddle01.com · its alternatives →
5
Local-First Linux MicroVMs for macOS▲213
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 →
6
Lightweight tool for managing Linux virtual machines▲144
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.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
7
A CLI tool I made to self-host any app with two commands on a VPS▲452
Bare metal to production ready in mins; your own fly server on your VPS. - MightyMoud/sidekick
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
8
Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines▲499
Branchable computing by using a portable, lightweight, self-contained virtual machine - smol-machines/smolvm
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
9VM
Virtual Machines in the Browser▲281
2013 · blog.grunseid.com · its alternatives →
10
QEMU front end for M1 and Intel Macs▲418
Securely run operating systems on your Mac
2021 · mac.getutm.app · its alternatives →
11
Tiny VM sandbox in C with apps in Rust, C and Zig▲196
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 →
12
VirtualProg▲74
A faster, simpler alternative to bulky VM managers.
Apr 2026 · makeprog.com · its alternatives →
13
MyNixOS – Create and share Nix and NixOS configurations▲200
Hello HN! I want to show you MyNixOS.com - a website I've been working on this year to make it easy to create and share Nix and NixOS configurations. Nix is a powerful tool to deploy software in a reproducible way, and with NixOS you can control your whole operating system through a declarative configuration. Starting out with Nix was exciting, but it definitely had a challenging learning curve. This made me start building a website focused on making it easier to create and share Nix flakes, which are the core unit of software deployment in Nix. Using the website, you can create flakes…
2022 · mynixos.com · its alternatives →
14
Ephemeral VMs in 1 Microsecond▲84
Contribute to libriscv/drogon-sandbox development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
15
Slim 2: Create VM from Dockerfile, boots in seconds (+macOS M1/Hyper-V)▲59
Build and run tiny vms from Dockerfiles. Small and sleek. - GitHub - ottomatica/slim at 2.x
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
Second State VM▲78
High performance secure & portable Rust functions in Node.js
2020 · secondstate.io · its alternatives →
17
Ocean▲205
Linux server you can fit in your pocket.
2016 · getocean.io · its alternatives →
18
TailMux▲114
Multiple Tailscale tailnets at once, no switching + no VM
Jul 2026 · tailmux.app · its alternatives →
19
Anos – a hand-written ~100KiB microkernel for x86-64 and RISC-V▲115
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 →
20
The Cloud for AI Agents▲128
Spin up secure sandboxes in ~100 ms
Nov 2025 · hopx.ai · its alternatives →
21
Katakate – Dozens of VMs per node for safe code exec▲124
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 →
22
Wiser – minimal hypervisor boots Linux VM, written in C▲136
:racehorse: Extremely minimal vmm for linux written in C. Hopefully someday will spin linux-vm for you. - flouthoc/wiser
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
23
Vpod – Tiny Linux sandbox running in WASM▲12
Hi HN, I spent the last few months reading the RISC‑V specification to build the lightest possible sandboxes. The idea behind a vpod is to quickly spin up a Linux sandbox from snapshots (Alpine by default) without any setup or subsystem required. The trade-off for portability and security is raw CPU speed. So we don't expect it to match native workloads with Python or pip, for example. More info is in the README https://github.com/capsulerun/vpod Happy to answer any questions!
Jun 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
24
Clone, a small Rust VMM, forks VMs in under 20ms via CoW▲11
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!
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

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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 →