# smolvm by smolmachines

28 Hacker News commenters recommended smolvm by smolmachines and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Lightweight cross-platform microVM tool that people use instead of containers, citing kernel-level isolation and fast boot. Critics note weaker security than Firecracker and limited documentation.

## Why people recommend it

- Kernel-level isolation (4 comments): "smolvm provides kernel-level isolation. Much closer to firecracker than docker." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49788286)) "Kernel-level isolation is a significant security differentiator, for starters." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48361188)) "which (unlike Docker) provide kernel-level isolation (among other benefits)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49816448))
- Fast boot and low resource use (5 comments): "Simple, fast (sub-200ms cold start), OCI-compat, and has trivial packing to standalone 0-dep executables." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48690575)) "smolvm has better bootup time (<200ms), secrets handling, and egress control compared to lima" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50206005)) "SmolVM uses microVMs which means the resource consumption is quite minimal." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716542))
- Works across macOS, Linux and Windows (4 comments): "smol machines actually support exactly those things across macs,linux, windows btw" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50022050)) "I can take care of the isolation story for you across windows, macOS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886971)) "you can use it with WSL or using our QEMU backend which supports Windows as well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47973358))
- Replaces containers for packaging apps (4 comments): "I love the idea of using this to distribute applications you might otherwise use a Docker image for." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47813647)) "A lightweight ,portable virtual machine that simplifies/replaces need for containers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49236673)) "No need for dependency management or compatibility issues because it is baked in." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47809716))

## What people warn about

- Weaker security than Firecracker (2 comments): "Firecracker actually minimizes the attack surface whereas smolvm does not" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49790475)) "Smolvm with it's libkrun vmm provides significantly worse security positioning than slicervms use of firecracker" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49920042))
- Breaking changes broke existing binaries (3 comments): "those same binaries now silently exit with code 0 and I have absolutely no idea what's wrong or how to diagnose" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49025638)) "I introduced a breaking change in order to build out the hosted platform & registry of pre-packed machines." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49087440)) "all the single binaries I made of various distros a month ago, simply don't work anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49079440))
- Thin documentation and hacky examples (2 comments): "It is also the least documented, which makes sense." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50062731)) "it work-ish (there is example), but quite hacky." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241211))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Firecracker](https://hackerapproved.com/p/firecracker.md): 78 recommend
- [smolmachines](https://hackerapproved.com/p/smol-machines.md): 27 recommend
- [libkrun](https://hackerapproved.com/p/libkrun.md): 13 recommend
- [Bhatti](https://hackerapproved.com/p/bhatti.md): 8 recommend
- [Local-First Linux MicroVMs for macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/local-first-linux-microvms-for-macos.md): 8 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "smolvm by smolmachines", https://hackerapproved.com/p/smolvm/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).