# machyve/xhyve

xhyve, a lightweight OS X virtualization solution

Repository: https://github.com/machyve/xhyve
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/xhyve
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Last push: 2022-01-29T15:33:45+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4102, "days_push": 1677, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 6436, forks 352 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:43.394149+00:00)

## What it is
xhyve is a lightweight hypervisor for macOS, a port of FreeBSD's bhyve built on Apple's Hypervisor.framework. It runs entirely in userspace with no dependencies and can boot FreeBSD, some Linux distributions, and Windows 10.

## Use cases
- run Linux VMs on macOS without VirtualBox
- lightweight headless virtualization on a Mac
- boot FreeBSD or Windows 10 in a VM on OS X
- run VMs entirely in userspace with no kernel extensions
- scriptable command-line VM management on macOS

## When to choose
- you need a minimal, dependency-free hypervisor on macOS 10.10+
- you want scriptable, headless VMs via CLI
- you prefer bhyve-style simplicity over VirtualBox/VMware

## When to avoid
- you need GPU acceleration or rich GUI features
- you need broad guest OS support or active development (project is largely unmaintained)
- you're on macOS 11+ where Virtualization.framework-based tools are better supported

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: maintenance
- function: cli
- domain: developer-tools, operating-systems
- platform: cli
- tags: hypervisor, virtualization, bhyve, macos, userspace, vm

## Member repositories
- machyve/xhyve (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:43.394149+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 2026-08-29T17:44:52.288486+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/machyve/xhyve (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:43.394149+00:00, sha 9804c7efb965)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.