libkrun
Hacker ApprovedRanked 4 of 6 microvm runtimes by recommenders
Recommended as an embeddable microVM library and drop-in backend for Podman and crun; the most common caveat is that it is not production ready.
Recommended as an embeddable microVM library and drop-in backend for Podman and crun; the most common caveat is that it is not production ready.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 6
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Used as a Podman backend
“Podman supports using KVM backed virtualization for containers via libkrun”
Comment from 5 Oct 2026 in “Linux containers in 500 lines of code (2016)” “I use it as a podman backend which works exactly as you describe here.”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “You can now run same OCI images as containers or Firecracker microVMs” “I use it as a podman backend in a microservice architecture.”
Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs” - Comment from 2 Jul 2026 in “Podman v6.0.0”
Lightweight cross-platform microVMs
“if you want cross-platform microvms, there's an interesting project called libkrun”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Matchlock: Linux-based sandboxing for AI agents” “My favorite microVM discovery recently has been tools built around libkrun.”
Comment from 21 Jun 2026 in “Running MicroVMs in Proxmox VE, the Easy Way” “a microVM like libkrun[2] if your goal is light-weight”
Comment from 3 Jul 2026 in “Jamesob's guide to running SOTA LLMs locally”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No readily available Ubuntu package
“it requires krun which does not have a readily-available package on ubuntu”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Securing Services with Rootless Containers” “krun does not have a readily available package for ubuntu”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Securing Services with Rootless Containers”
Other microvm runtimes people recommend
The four most recommended other microvm runtimes, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firecracker | 78 | 20 | 80% | 12 | — | Approved |
| smolvm by smolmachines | 28 | 9 | 76% | 10 | — | Approved |
| smolmachines | 27 | 3 | 90% | 6 | — | Approved |
| libkrunThis page | 13 | 6 | 68% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Bhatti | 8 | 0 | 100% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 25 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Podman supports using KVM backed virtualization for containers via libkrun”
“it's not clear that it works out of the box”
“I've been excited about using (lib)krun as a drop in replacement for crun/runc”
“krun does not have a readily available package for ubuntu”
“it requires krun which does not have a readily-available package on ubuntu”
“I use it as a podman backend which works exactly as you describe here.”
“a microVM like libkrun[2] if your goal is light-weight”
“is battle tested and used for podman”
“Libkrun is so easy for k8s!”
“libkrun is not production ready compared to Firecracker”
“The core tech of both are great though.”
“I use it as a podman backend in a microservice architecture.”
“if you want a more embedded sandbox runtime as a library instead of a daemon + REST API”
“My favorite microVM discovery recently has been tools built around libkrun.”
“libkrun is not secure by default”
“if you want cross-platform microvms, there's an interesting project called libkrun”
“Props to libkrun team for creating that”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.