# hyperlight-dev/hyperlight

Hyperlight is a lightweight Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) designed to be embedded within applications. It enables safe execution of untrusted code within micro virtual machines with very low latency and minimal overhead.

Repository: https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/hyperlight
Homepage: https://hyperlight.org
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: hyper-v, hypervisor, kvm, mshv, rust, vmm
Last push: 2026-08-26T22:04:49+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 85/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 90, longevity 47
- inputs: {"age_days": 666, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 68, "gap_med": 28, "n_releases_24m": 20}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4635, forks 200 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:55.411986+00:00)

## What it is
Hyperlight is a lightweight Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) library, written in Rust, that embeds micro virtual machines into applications for safely executing untrusted code. It provides hardware-isolated micro VMs with no guest OS that start in milliseconds and support typed host-guest function calls with microsecond latency.

## Use cases
- run untrusted code in a hardware-isolated sandbox from my Rust application
- execute guest functions in micro VMs with millisecond startup
- isolate plugin or extension code with hypervisor-level security
- call functions across a VM boundary as if they were local functions
- run no_std Rust or C guest binaries without a guest OS
- snapshot and restore VM state between function calls

## When to choose
- you need strong hardware isolation for untrusted or third-party code with minimal latency
- you want micro VMs without the overhead of booting a guest kernel or OS
- you are building in Rust on Linux (KVM/MSHV) or Windows (WHP/WSL2)
- you need a small, explicit host-guest interface with zero implicit syscalls

## When to avoid
- you need to run existing unmodified Linux binaries or containers that require a full guest OS
- you need macOS support (Hypervisor.Framework is not yet available) or arm64 (still upcoming)
- you need a stable API - Hyperlight is pre-1.0 and may change between releases
- you need general-purpose VM management like Firecracker or full system virtualization

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: security, rpc, developer-tools
- domain: security, developer-tools, cloud-computing, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: windows, rust, cross-platform
- tags: micro-vms, vmm, hypervisor, hardware-isolation, untrusted-code-execution, kvm, mshv, whp, no-std, cncf, sandboxing, virtualization, linux

## Member repositories
- hyperlight-dev/hyperlight (main) score 85

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:55.411986+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 2026-08-29T18:19:34.503412+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/hyperlight-dev/hyperlight (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:55.411986+00:00, sha 888ba624d899)
  - homepage: https://hyperlight.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:04:15.924490+00:00, sha d6e5158a9656)
  - site_page: https://hyperlight.org/guides/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T09:04:15.934010+00:00, sha 30f94fcbfd85)
  - registry_crates: https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/hyperlight (fetched 2026-08-29T09:04:15.936265+00:00, sha 721a74aa67f3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.