microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker
microvm – a minimalist machine type for QEMU inspired by Firecracker launched on November 6, 2019 with 145 votes, #161 of 3,203 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches. The site was not reachable when checked in September 2026.
In plain words
microvm is a lightweight machine type for QEMU that takes design inspiration from Firecracker. It strips away unnecessary components to create a minimal virtual machine configuration, making it suitable for users who need fast, efficient virtualization with reduced overhead. The project is aimed at developers and systems administrators working with containerization, serverless computing, or resource-constrained environments. Its minimalist approach distinguishes it from standard QEMU machine types by prioritizing speed and efficiency over feature completeness.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
Does a similar job
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krunvm – Create and run lightweight VMs from OCI images2021 · github.com · ▲82Create microVMs from OCI images. Contribute to slp/krunvm development by creating an account on GitHub.
Smol machines – subsecond coldstart, portable virtual machinesApr 2026 · github.com · ▲499Branchable computing by using a portable, lightweight, self-contained virtual machine - smol-machines/smolvm
Ephemeral VMs in 1 Microsecond2024 · github.com · ▲84Contribute to libriscv/drogon-sandbox development by creating an account on GitHub.
Sub-millisecond VM sandboxes using CoW memory forkingMar 2026 · github.com · ▲311I 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…
Firecracker Lab – Build a microVM from a container image2022 · github.com · ▲35Build a Firecracker microVM from a container image - alexellis/firecracker-init-lab
Tiny VM sandbox in C with apps in Rust, C and ZigDec 2025 · github.com · ▲196Minimalist, 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
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