cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor
A Virtual Machine Monitor for modern Cloud workloads. Features include CPU, memory and device hotplug, support for running Windows and Linux guests, device offload with vhost-user and a minimal compact footprint. Written in Rust with a strong focus on security. observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
93/100
- Activity 99
- Release rhythm 80
- Longevity 100
Flags: no_license
How is this computed?
round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10) — computed 2026-09-03. Adoption (stars, forks) is never an input.
- gap_med: 54
- age_days: 2682
- days_rel: 52
- days_push: 7
- n_releases_24m: 16
Adoption not part of the score
6149 stars · 746 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
Cloud Hypervisor is an open source Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) written in Rust that runs on top of KVM or Microsoft's MSHV hypervisor. It focuses on running modern cloud workloads with minimal emulation, offering CPU/memory/PCI hotplug, live migration, snapshot/restore, and a REST API for VM lifecycle control.
Use cases
- run lightweight Linux or Windows VMs on a KVM host
- run secure containerized workloads with Kata Containers
- hot-plug CPUs, memory, and PCI devices into running VMs
- live-migrate VMs between hosts without interruption
- boot VMs in under 100ms with direct kernel boot
- run VMs with a small memory footprint for dense deployments
- control VM lifecycle programmatically via an HTTP API
- passthrough physical PCI devices to guests with VFIO
When to choose
- you need a minimal, security-focused VMM for modern 64-bit cloud workloads
- you want fast boot times and low memory overhead for microVMs
- you need hotplug, live migration, or snapshot/restore on KVM or MSHV
- you prefer a Rust-based VMM with a small attack surface
- you run Kata Containers and need a supported hypervisor backend
When to avoid
- you need legacy device emulation or 32-bit guest support
- you need broad architecture support beyond x86-64 and AArch64 (riscv64 is experimental)
- you want a full-featured desktop virtualization solution with GUI management
- your host kernel is too old for the required KVM functionality
Facets
application · maturity active
security developer-tools cloud cloud-computing security infrastructure-as-code rust cli cloud self-hosted vmm kvm mshv rust-vmm virtio hotplug live-migration microvm kata-containers aarch64 x86-64 virtualization containers linux
3 sources
- readme: https://github.com/cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor · fetched 2026-08-28 · fb79fee9dc34
- homepage: https://www.cloudhypervisor.org · fetched 2026-08-29 · 108e14761477
- site_page: https://www.cloudhypervisor.org/docs/prologue/introduction · fetched 2026-08-29 · 860f3aa1bc91
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor | main | 93 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="cloud-hypervisor/cloud-hypervisor")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem