smol-machines/smolvm
Portable, lightweight, self-contained virtual machine. observed · 2026-08-28
Health v2 · maintenance only
79/100
- Activity 99
- Release rhythm 87
- Longevity 18
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: 0
- age_days: 258
- days_rel: 7
- days_push: 7
- n_releases_24m: 124
Adoption not part of the score
5756 stars · 273 forks observed · 2026-08-28
What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded
smolvm is an open-source CLI and runtime for running lightweight, hardware-isolated Linux microVMs locally on macOS, Linux, and Windows, built on libkrun with sub-second cold starts and no Docker daemon required. It can pack a stateful VM into a single portable .smolmachine file and boot OCI images with declarative Smolfile configuration.
Use cases
- run untrusted code in a hardware-isolated sandbox
- sandbox coding agent execution with locked-down network egress
- boot an alpine OCI image as an ephemeral microVM
- pack a python environment into a portable self-contained executable
- create persistent dev VMs declared in a Smolfile
- run kubernetes or docker inside a local microvm
- run headless browsers for computer-use agents in isolation
When to choose
- you need VM-level isolation rather than container isolation for untrusted or agent workloads
- you want sub-second VM startup on your laptop without a Docker daemon
- you need portable, self-contained VM artifacts that run across macOS, Linux, and Windows
- you want declarative VM configuration with explicit network policy and port mappings
When to avoid
- you only need lightweight process-level containerization and already run Docker or Podman
- your host lacks hardware virtualization (no KVM, Apple Silicon requirements, or Windows Hypervisor Platform)
- you need managed, persistent cloud VMs without operating infrastructure yourself
- you need live migration or snapshotting of running VMs
Facets
cli-tool · maturity active
container-runtime cli security developer-tools developer-tools security cloud-computing windows cli rust microvm virtualization sandboxing oci-images libkrun portable-vms agent-sandbox smolmachine command-line automation macos linux
6 sources
- readme: https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm · fetched 2026-08-28 · 8b52bc6f63d9
- homepage: https://smolmachines.com · fetched 2026-08-29 · 949c89810b01
- site_page: https://smolmachines.com/docs · fetched 2026-08-29 · 071a84ff63f3
- site_page: https://smolmachines.com/docs/local · fetched 2026-08-29 · 4fb2294f54bf
- site_page: https://smolmachines.com/pricing · fetched 2026-08-29 · 1be798c91874
- site_page: https://smolmachines.com/faq · fetched 2026-08-29 · 5757cc8a3b16
Member repositories
| Repository | Role | Health v2 |
|---|---|---|
| smol-machines/smolvm | main | 79 |
For agents
markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="smol-machines/smolvm")
Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00 · Report a problem