# lxc/incus

Powerful system container and virtual machine manager

Repository: https://github.com/lxc/incus
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/incus
Homepage: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: hacktoberfest, cloud, containers, virtual-machines
Last push: 2026-08-26T00:05:28+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 95, longevity 81
- inputs: {"age_days": 1138, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 34, "gap_med": 27.0, "n_releases_24m": 31}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6025, forks 481 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:34.354421+00:00)

## What it is
Incus is a system container, application container, and virtual machine manager that provides a public-cloud-like experience for running Linux workloads, with a unified REST API and CLI. It is a community-governed fork of Canonical's LXD, maintained by the original LXD team under the Linux Containers project, scaling from a single machine to full data-center clusters.

## Use cases
- run and manage linux system containers and vms on my server
- self-host a small private cloud
- find an open source alternative to lxd
- set up a home lab with containers and virtual machines
- manage a cluster of container hosts from one cli
- spin up disposable dev environments from linux distro images
- run isolated workloads with shared storage and networking
- migrate existing lxd or lxc instances to a community project

## When to choose
- you want a cloud-like API and CLI to mix containers and VMs on the same storage and network
- you need built-in clustering, storage pools (ZFS, Ceph, LVM), and advanced networking (OVN, BGP) in one tool
- you prefer a fully open-source, CLA-free, community-run alternative to LXD
- you run Linux hosts and want to scale from a laptop to a data-center rack

## When to avoid
- you need to build, ship, and orchestrate OCI application images across many hosts at scale - Docker or Kubernetes fit better
- your hosts are macOS or Windows, since Incus requires a Linux kernel
- you only need lightweight process isolation without image management or VM support
- you want a managed public cloud rather than self-operated infrastructure

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: container-runtime, container-orchestration, cloud, self-hosted
- domain: cloud-computing, self-hosted
- platform: cli, self-hosted, cloud, go
- tags: virtual-machines, system-containers, lxd-fork, rest-api, private-cloud, image-based, clustering, zfs, ceph, ovn-networking, home-lab, virtualization, containers, devops, linux

## Member repositories
- lxc/incus (main) score 94

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:34.354421+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 2026-08-29T17:49:43.819361+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/lxc/incus (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:34.354421+00:00, sha 9fef9d26b87f)
  - homepage: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.970165+00:00, sha 38f42297c90c)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/docs/main (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.972989+00:00, sha e7ded83d765b)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus-os/docs/main (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.974658+00:00, sha 03cf5084e71c)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.976240+00:00, sha bc8a7ac428c9)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxc/documentation (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.978339+00:00, sha 12b232992f56)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxcfs/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.980114+00:00, sha da97669c7916)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/distrobuilder/docs/latest (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.981765+00:00, sha b769c8605a16)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/docs/main/tutorial/first_steps (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.983540+00:00, sha 2d9f6baa8847)
  - site_page: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/docs/main/explanation/containers_and_vms (fetched 2026-08-29T08:46:00.985403+00:00, sha c9f6211142d1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.