# MXC (Microsoft Execution Containers)

15 Hacker News commenters recommended MXC (Microsoft Execution Containers) and 17 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free, MIT-licensed library that runs code under per-command permissions, with a learning mode for finding needed settings. Critics note poor documentation, missing macOS support and an early, unstable state.

## Why people recommend it

- Per-command permissions and learning mode (2 comments): "I like the ‘learning’ mode for figuring out what perms/config a runtime needs, the MIT license" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017836)) "Very interesting concept to make permissions specific to individual shell commands" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019904))
- Generally useful, addresses a real problem (2 comments): "MXC seems generally useful, but it's just poorly executed." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50045632)) "this does look like it might solve a real problem for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50026557))

## What people warn about

- Largely LLM-written, sloppy code (3 comments): "almost this entire project was done by a recent-gen LLM that interpreted its instructions as "make these things work at all costs"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50026061)) "almost this entire project was done by a recent-gen LLM that interpreted its instructions as “make these things work at all costs”" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50036405)) "I feel like there are more vulnerabilities in this vibe coded slop sandboxes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50017731))
- Missing macOS support and features (2 comments): "They have this for Windows and Linux, but it's sadly missing for macOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019972)) "Things macOS is missing include "Allow/deny by hostname" and "Allow/deny by IP, CIDR, port, or protocol"" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50020234))
- Poor or missing documentation (2 comments): "Most of the features are undocumented. I think because most of the behavior is not really defined and varies greatly between the different backends." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042205)) "It all looks very sloppy. And documentation is basically non-existent." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50037817))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Docker Sandboxes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/docker-sandboxes.md): 50 recommend
- [NVIDIA OpenShell](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openshell.md): 36 recommend
- [Claude Code sandbox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/claude-code-sandbox.md): 16 recommend
- [microsandbox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/microsandbox.md): 13 recommend
- [Era](https://hackerapproved.com/p/era.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "MXC (Microsoft Execution Containers)", https://hackerapproved.com/p/mxc/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).