Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machines
Branchable computing by using a portable, lightweight, self-contained virtual machine - smol-machines/smolvm
Smol machines is a virtual machine tool designed for developers who need fast startup times and portability. It delivers subsecond coldstart performance, making it useful for rapid testing, development workflows, and… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
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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 →
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2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
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SmolVLA▲139Powerful robotics VLA that runs on consumer hardware
2025 · huggingface.co · its alternatives →
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SmolVM is an open-source local sandbox for AI agents on macOS and Linux. I started building it because agent workflows need more than isolated code execution. They need a reusable environment: write files in one step, come back later, snapshot state, pause/resume, and increasingly interact with browsers or full desktop environments. Right now SmolVM is a Python SDK and CLI focused on local developer experience. Current features include: - local sandbox environments - macOS and Linux support - snapshotting - pause/resume - persistent environments across turns Install: ``` curl -sSL…
Apr 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Build and run tiny vms from Dockerfiles. Small and sleek. - ottomatica/slim
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Contribute to libriscv/drogon-sandbox development by creating an account on GitHub.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Create microVMs from OCI images. Contribute to slp/krunvm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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"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 →
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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 →
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HVM1 (2022): a massively parallel, optimal functional runtime in Rust - HigherOrderCO/HVM1
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Build and run tiny vms from Dockerfiles. Small and sleek. - GitHub - ottomatica/slim at 2.x
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Spin up secure sandboxes in ~100 ms
Nov 2025 · hopx.ai · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Hey! I've been really intrigued about small, on device models recently. This project was to explore that a small base model running in the browser as a Co Pilot-like writing assistant. You can check out the demo here: smol-complete.vercel.app. Smal, on device models have a lot of advantages with low latency, cost, privacy (a big one), and being task specific. The demo will definitely repeat itself and hallucinate sometimes, but let me know what you think!
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
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VM with JIT-compiler for ATMega32 written in Rust. Contribute to MackieLoeffel/avr-vm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
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A set of utilities (vmcli + vmctl) for macOS Virtualization.framework - gyf304/vmcli
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Statechart library and editor. Contribute to jonasblixt/ufsm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2018 · github.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
Also compare
- Sub-millisecond VM sandboxes using CoW memory forking alternatives
- SmolVLM2 alternatives
- microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker alternatives
- SmolVLA alternatives
- SmolVM – open-source sandbox for coding and computer-use agents 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 →