Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Wiser – minimal hypervisor boots Linux VM, written in C

:racehorse: Extremely minimal vmm for linux written in C. Hopefully someday will spin linux-vm for you. - flouthoc/wiser

Wiser is a minimal hypervisor written in C that boots Linux virtual machines. Designed for developers and systems programmers interested in virtualization technology, it provides a lightweight alternative to… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Wiser – minimal hypervisor boots Linux VM, written in C launched in 2021; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1
Tiny type-2 Linux hypervisor built using Linux/KVM. In in C▲18
:racehorse: Extremely minimal vmm for linux written in C. Hopefully someday will spin linux-vm for you. - flouthoc/wiser
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
2
A small virtual machine written in C▲212
"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 →
3
Witr – Explain why a process is running on your Linux system▲526
Hi HN, I built a small Linux CLI tool called witr (Why Is This Running?). The idea came from a situation most of us have hit: you log into a machine, see a process or port running, and immediately wonder why it exists, who started it, and what is keeping it alive right now. witr traces a process, service, or port back to its origin and responsibility chain and explains it in a way that’s quick to read, especially when you’re debugging under pressure. This is v0.1.0. It’s intentionally small and focused. Feedback, criticism, and edge cases are very welcome. Repo:…
Dec 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
4
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 →
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
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 →
7
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 →
8
Lumier – Run macOS VMs in a Docker▲159
Hey HN, we're excited to share Lumier (https://github.com/trycua/cua/tree/main/libs/lumier), an open-source tool for running macOS and Linux virtual machines in Docker containers on Apple Silicon Macs. When building virtualized environments for AI agents, we needed a reproducible way to package and distribute macOS VMs. Inspired by projects like dockur/windows (https://github.com/dockur/windows) that pioneered running Windows in Docker, we wanted to create something similar but optimized for Apple Silicon. The existing…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
9
A minimal stack based VM in C▲60
A minimal stack-based VM. Contribute to codr7/liblg development by creating an account on GitHub.
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
10
AVR-VM – VM with JIT-compiler for ATMega32 written in Rust▲78
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 →
11
Bor – Open-source policy management for Linux desktops▲197
Hi HN! I've been working on Bor, an open-source system for centralized Linux desktop management. Bor consists of a lightweight Go agent and a central server. Policies are streamed to clients over mTLS/gRPC in real time—no polling—and currently support Firefox, Chrome, KDE, dconf, polkit and package management, with more coming. Version 0.8 introduces several new policy types - Thunderbird, Microsoft Edge for Business and FirewallD zones, along with a number of improvements and fixes. I'd love feedback on the architecture, policy model, and whether this is something you'd consider for…
Aug 2026 · getbor.dev · its alternatives →
12
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 →
13
Tiny-vLLM – high performance LLM inference engine in C++ and CUDA▲205
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 →
14
TensorZero▲307
Hi HN! We're Gabriel & Viraj, and we're excited to open source TensorZero. To be a little cheeky, TensorZero is an open-source platform that helps LLM applications graduate from API wrappers into defensible AI products. 1. Integrate our model gateway 2. Send metrics or feedback 3. Unlock compounding improvements in quality, cost, and latency It enables a data & learning flywheel for LLMs by unifying: • Inference: one API for all LLMs, with <1ms P99 overhead • Observability: inference & feedback → your database • Optimization: better prompts, models, inference strategies • Experimentation:…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
15
Linux tool to show progress for cp, rm, dd, etc.▲252
Linux tool to show progress for cp, mv, dd, ... (formerly known as cv) - Xfennec/progress
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
16
Drop – a rootless Linux sandbox with gVisor support▲193
Drop: a rootless Linux sandbox for developers. It isolates coding agents and third-party packages while preserving your work environment.
29d ago · droprun.sh · its alternatives →
17
Skill that lets Claude Code/Codex spin up VMs and GPUs▲138
I've been working on CloudRouter, a skill + CLI that gives coding agents like Claude Code and Codex the ability to start cloud VMs and GPUs. When an agent writes code, it usually needs to start a dev server, run tests, open a browser to verify its work. Today that all happens on your local machine. This works fine for a single task, but the agent is sharing your computer: your ports, RAM, screen. If you run multiple agents in parallel, it gets a bit chaotic. Docker helps with isolation, but it still uses your machine's resources, and doesn't give the agent a browser, a desktop, or a GPU to…
Feb 2026 · cloudrouter.dev · its alternatives →
18
Find the best local LLM for your hardware, ranked by benchmarks▲283
Find the local LLM that actually runs and performs best on your hardware. Ranked by real, recency-aware benchmarks, not parameter count. One command, run it instantly. - Andyyyy64/whichllm
May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
19
High-order Virtual Machine (HVM) – A Parallel Functional Runtime▲150
HVM1 (2022): a massively parallel, optimal functional runtime in Rust - HigherOrderCO/HVM1
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
20
Local fine tuning for Mistral and SDXL, GPU mem/latency optimization▲36
100% bootstrapped new startup. It lets you fine tune Mistral-7B and SDXL. In particular, for the LLM fine tuning we implemented a dataprep pipeline that turns websites/pdfs/doc files into question-answer pairs for training the small LLM using an big LLM. It includes a GPU scheduler that can do finegrained GPU memory scheduling (Kubernetes can only do whole-GPU, we do it per-GB of GPU memory to pack both inference and fine tuning jobs into the same fleet) to fit model instances into GPU memory to optimally trade off user facing latency with GPU memory utilization It's a pretty…
2023 · docs.helix.ml · its alternatives →
21
SSH-hypervisor – like SSH, but each user gets their own microVM▲34
This is a project I made over the weekend. What if when you SSH'd into a machine, instead of giving you a user login, it would provision a new microVM just for you? It's like a little SimCity for VMs. This turned out to be a lot of fun, and I've wanted to make my own custom SSH server for a while now, with its fancy progress bars and color animations. The hardest part was definitely debugging VM setup, boot, and networking though! Compiling the Linux kernel with all the right configs was difficult. For a while I had issues with silent hangs on boot due to lack of available system entropy, on…
2025 · ekzhang.substack.com · its alternatives →
22
Ksm – a lightweight hypervisor for Windows (eptp vmfunc+idt shadow)▲12
A fast, hackable and simple x64 VT-x hypervisor for Windows and Linux. Builtin userspace sandbox and introspection engine. - asamy/ksm
2016 · github.com · its alternatives →
23
MyraOS – My 32-bit operating system in C and ASM (Hack Club project)▲247
Hi HN, I’m Dvir, a young developer. Last year, I got rejected after a job interview because I lacked some CPU knowledge. After that, I decided to deepen my understanding in the low level world and learn how things work under the hood. I decided to try and create an OS in C and ASM as a way to broaden my knowledge in this area. This took me on the most interesting ride, where I’ve learned about OS theory and low level programming on a whole new level. I’ve spent hours upon hours, blood and tears, reading different OS theory blogs, learning low level concepts, debugging, testing and working on…
Oct 2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
24
krunvm – Create and run lightweight VMs from OCI images▲82
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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