# asterinas/asterinas

Asterinas aims to be a production-grade Linux alternative—memory safe, high-performance, and more.

Repository: https://github.com/asterinas/asterinas
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/asterinas
Homepage: https://asterinas.github.io/book/
Language: Rust
License: MPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: kernel, os, rust, tee
Last push: 2026-08-26T16:00:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 86, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1569, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 15, "gap_med": 67.0, "n_releases_24m": 5}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4822, forks 356 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:00.545082+00:00)

## What it is
Asterinas is a memory-safe, production-oriented OS kernel written in Rust that implements the Linux ABI, aiming to be a drop-in Linux alternative. It includes OSTD (a Rust OS development foundation), OSDK (a Cargo-like CLI for building Rust OS projects), and Asterinas NixOS, a distribution running the kernel.

## Use cases
- run a memory-safe Linux-compatible kernel
- build a Rust OS kernel on a safe foundation
- run workloads inside Intel TDX confidential VMs
- boot NixOS with a Rust kernel instead of Linux
- research kernel fuzzing and memory management
- develop custom OS projects with a Cargo-like toolchain

## When to choose
- you need Linux ABI compatibility with memory safety guarantees
- you are doing OS research in Rust
- you target TEE/confidential-computing environments
- you want to experiment with a next-generation kernel

## When to avoid
- you need a battle-tested kernel for production workloads today
- you require broad hardware/driver support
- you need non-x86/riscv/loongarch architectures
- you depend on niche Linux features not yet implemented

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: experimental
- function: security, embedded, developer-tools
- domain: operating-systems, security, developer-tools
- platform: rust
- tags: os-kernel, rust-os, linux-alternative, memory-safety, tee, intel-tdx, nixos, osdk, linux, x86

## Member repositories
- asterinas/asterinas (main) score 95

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:00.545082+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:18:31.426101+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/asterinas/asterinas (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:00.545082+00:00, sha e702dbd6fa84)
  - homepage: https://asterinas.github.io/book/ (fetched 2026-08-29T09:01:22.455823+00:00, sha c551752f0fc2)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.