rcore-os/zCore

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

1777 stars · 216 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-30, confidence not recorded

zCore is a reimplementation of Google's Zircon microkernel written in safe Rust, runnable both as a userspace libos program and on bare metal (x86_64, RISC-V, and other architectures). It also provides a Linux-compatible mode, allowing Linux applications to run on top of the kernel.

Use cases

• run a Zircon-compatible microkernel written in Rust
• study operating system kernel design in Rust
• run Linux apps on a Rust microkernel
• boot a custom kernel on RISC-V hardware
• experiment with libos-mode kernels in userspace

When to choose

• you want a safe-Rust microkernel compatible with Zircon syscalls
• you need an educational or research OS kernel with Linux compatibility
• you want to run a kernel as a userspace libos for easier debugging

When to avoid

• you need a production-grade, fully Zircon-compatible kernel like Fuchsia's
• you need broad hardware driver support or a general-purpose desktop OS
• you need long-term commercial support

Facets

library · maturity active

interpreter embedded concurrency operating-systems programming-languages embedded-systems rust cpp microkernel zircon os-kernel rust-os qemu riscv libos research-os linux

Member repositories

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markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="rcore-os/zCore")