Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Virby, a vfkit-based Linux builder for Nix-Darwin
Virby is a module for nix-darwin that configures a lightweight linux VM as a remote build machine for nix, allowing linux packages to be built on macOS.
Virby is a nix-darwin module that sets up a lightweight Linux virtual machine to serve as a remote build machine for Nix. It enables macOS users to build Linux packages directly from their systems. The tool integrates… 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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Initial source-only release of Alacritty
2017 · blog.jwilm.io · its alternatives →
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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 →
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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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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 · 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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Flox▲375Hey Everyone! Ron here, part of the NixOS Foundation and building Flox. Just coming out of this years NixCon and pretty excited to show hn below :) As of today, NVIDIA officially recognizes Canonical, SUSE, CIQ, and Nix—via Flox—as supported distributors for CUDA. Full blog - https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/developers-can-now-get-cud... This is a huge win for the Nix community. For years, CUDA on Nix was possible but painful—builds could take hours, and redistributing prebuilt binaries was blocked by NVIDIA's licensing requirements. NVIDIA's growing engagement with key…
2024 · flox.dev · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Minimal distributed configuration management in bash - frameable/aviary.sh
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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2023 · flakehub.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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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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Linux virtual machine, running in the browser via HTML5/WebAssembly. Networking and graphics supported.
2021 · repl.leaningtech.com · its alternatives →
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A vim-like in Python. Contribute to vyapp/vy development by creating an account on GitHub.
2019 · github.com · 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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A set of utilities (vmcli + vmctl) for macOS Virtualization.framework - gyf304/vmcli
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Fast, secure, configurable. A bold new take on Nix caching.
2024 · determinate.systems · its alternatives →
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Hello! This is Edgar and Robbie and we built nix-snapshotter. nix-snapshotter brings native understanding of Nix packages to containerd. We built this because Nix is a great fit for making efficient containers. They don't need an OS because Nix captures all dependencies exactly. However, the current process of creating Nix images is subpar because one needs to transform Nix packages into a format that container runtimes understand. Using nix-snapshotter, instead of downloading image layers, packages come directly from the Nix store. Packages can be fetched from a binary cache or built on the…
2023 · 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 →
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Give coding agents a disposable Linux VM, not your laptop - clawkwork/clawk
Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hello, this is Edgar! We are open sourcing nix-ninja, an incremental build system for Nix that leverages dynamic derivations. For those unfamiliar, Nix is a powerful package manager and build system that ensures reproducible builds via strict dependency isolation. However, one of its limitations has been that it builds packages as monolithic units - if you change one source file, Nix rebuilds the entire package from scratch. nix-ninja solves this by bringing compilation unit level granularity to Nix builds. It targets ninja build files, a format for describing build graphs output by popular…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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The Darwin kernel (XNU) has been open source since 1999. But "open source" and "you can actually build and boot it" are very different things. XNU depends on proprietary tooling, kexts, and a bunch of open source projects published without a build system. Darnix builds the whole thing with Nix. The kernel, the filesystem, the boot image, all the way to a running QEMU instance. We patched XNU to run on QEMU without kexts, ported HFS+ from a kernel extension into the kernel itself, fixed GRUB's Mach-O loader, and wired it all together as a flake. The build is fully sandboxed. No root, no…
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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We wrote our inference engine on Rust, it is faster than llama cpp in all of the use cases. Your feedback is very welcomed. Written from scratch with idea that you can add support of any kernel and platform.
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, I’m Surya and I’m excited to show you WarpBuild! WarpBuild provides fast, secure `x86-64` and `arm64` Github actions runners. This speeds up your workloads by 30%, at half the cost, and takes ~2mins to get started. We’ve been seeing pretty good results since we opened up signups a week ago and I’ve shared some numbers publicly here [1]. Currently, we support linux runners for Github organizations (not personal accounts) and MacOS support is coming soon (~Jan). The way the runners work is deceptively simple: Runners are assigned to hardware that is ideal for build workloads with fast…
2023 · warpbuild.com · its alternatives →
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- Lume – OS lightweight CLI for MacOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon alternatives
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- Slim – Build and run tiny VMs from Dockerfiles alternatives
- Flox 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 →