Smol machines
Dev tools
virtual machines
SHOW HN2026
499points
152comments
#51of 4,366 in 2026
Top 2%of 2026 by points
How HN took it
LovedMost comments that take a side are positive
29 positive, 49 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 2 critical, out of 83 comments about the project. Thread score +0.36.
Idea: 12 for, 0 againstExecution: 4 for, 1 againstDesign: 4 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Fast startup and container-like ergonomics
From 3 comments
Great job with the comparison table. Immediately I was like “neat sounds like firecracker” then saw your table to see where it was similar and different. Easy! Nice job! This…
cr125rider on HNWe’re using smolmachines to create environments for our agents to execute code. It’s been great so far and the team is super responsive. The dev ergonomics are also great.
isterin on HNsmolvm is awesome. The team is highly responsive and very experienced. They clearly know what they’re doing. I’m currently evaluating smolvm for my project, https://withcave.ai,…
akoenig on HN
Responsive, experienced team
From 2 comments
smolvm is awesome. The team is highly responsive and very experienced. They clearly know what they’re doing. I’m currently evaluating smolvm for my project, https://withcave.ai,…
akoenig on HNWe’re using smolmachines to create environments for our agents to execute code. It’s been great so far and the team is super responsive. The dev ergonomics are also great.
isterin on HN
Objections
No Windows support yet
From 2 comments
hi, great project! Windows support is sorely lacking, though. As someone working a lot with sandboxed LLMs right now, the options-space on windows for sandboxing is _extremely…
sdrinf on HNI see you support Linux and MacOS hosts. Any Windows support planned?
rkagerer on HN
Cannot run Docker or nested VMs inside the microVM
From 1 comment
Basically any open source project nowadays run their software stack in containers often requiring docker compose. Unfortunatley Smol machines do not support Docker inside the…
lambdanodecore on HN
No live migration support
From 1 comment
What is the status of supporting live migration? That's the one feature of similar systems that always gets left out. I understand why: it's not a priority for "cloud native"…
topspin on HN
Requests
Windows and WSL support
From 3 comments
hi, great project! Windows support is sorely lacking, though. As someone working a lot with sandboxed LLMs right now, the options-space on windows for sandboxing is _extremely…
sdrinf on HNHey, thanks so much! yah we will definitely add windows support later. We are exploring how to get this work with WSL and will release it asap. Stay tuned and thanks!
fqiao on HNHey this is pretty neat! I definitely would try using this for benchmarks and other places where I need strong isolation as Docker is just too bloated and slow, but sadly I don't…
simonreiff on HN
Docker inside the VM
From 1 comment
Basically any open source project nowadays run their software stack in containers often requiring docker compose. Unfortunatley Smol machines do not support Docker inside the…
lambdanodecore on HN
Kubernetes/k3s support
From 1 comment
Hey this is super cool. I've been researching tech like this for my AI sandboxing solution, ended up with Lima+Incus: https://github.com/JanPokorny/locki My problem with microVMs…
PufPufPuf on HN
Live migration
From 1 comment
What is the status of supporting live migration? That's the one feature of similar systems that always gets left out. I understand why: it's not a priority for "cloud native"…
topspin on HN
Questions
Where do the base images come from
From 2 comments
What are you actually doing on top of libkrun? Providing really small machine images that boot quickly? If I run the smolvm run --image alpine example, what is "alpine?" Where is…
nonameiguess on HNI see the alpine and python:3.12-alpine images in your cli docs. Where does these come from?is it from a docker like registry or are these built in? Can I create my own images?…
chwzr on HN
How the subsecond cold start is achieved
From 1 comment
its a really innovative idea! very interested in the subsecond coldstart claim, how does it achieve that?
harshdoesdev on HN
Alternatives named
Firecracker
From 2 comments
+1. i built something similar called shuru.run because i wanted an easy way to set up microVM sandboxes to run some of my AI apps, and firecracker wasn't available for macOS…
harshdoesdev on HNNice work on Shuru — I remember looking at it when I was researching this space. You went with a Rust wrapper on Apple’s Virtualization framework right? I have been working on…
sahil-shubham on HN
OrbStack
From 1 comment
You could add OrbStack to the comp. table
thm on HN
Docker sandbox
From 1 comment
Doesn't Docker's sbx do this? https://docs.docker.com/reference/cli/sbx/
ukuina on HN
Apple containers
From 1 comment
im keen to check this out. since I've moved 100% to the Mac [1] I've been keen to move away from Docker to something like Apple Containers [2] which runs each "container" as an…
gigatexal on HN
Kata Containers
From 1 comment
kata containers is a container runtime that focuses on running containers inside a vm. smolvm is a vm with some of the properties & ergonomics of containers - it's meant as a…
binsquare on HN