Xen hypervisor
Hacker ApprovedRanked 7 of 16 hypervisors by recommenders
Recommended for strong isolation of networking, CPU and RAM, and as the hypervisor under Qubes. Critics note it periodically has CVEs.
Recommended for strong isolation of networking, CPU and RAM, and as the hypervisor under Qubes. Critics note it periodically has CVEs.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 71%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not 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
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.4 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
Suits strong isolation and project needs
“a very elegant and robust answer for strong isolation of networking and resources like CPU and RAM”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Jails for NetBSD – Kernel Enforced Isolation and Native Resource Control” “We believe that the Xen hypervisor architecture better suits the needs of our project.”
Comment from 2 Oct 2026 in “Qubes OS 4.3.2 has been released” Praised as excellent, high-quality platform
“excellent virtual machine platforms (KVM, Xen and even VMWare)”
Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “An Update on GitHub Availability” “high-quality practical implementations”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Toro: Deploy Applications as Unikernels” Used as base for other projects
“Probably the easiest way to do this would be to start from Xen”
Comment from 26 Jul 2026 in “Maybe we should revisit microkernels” “I am ripping off the best ideas from xen/Qubes”
Comment from 31 Aug 2026 in “Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Security issues and CVEs recur
“VT-d, which statistically has much less security issues than Xen itself”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Kernel bugs hide for 2 years on average. Some hide for 20” “Even Xen (VM used by Qubes) periodically has CVEs”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “OpenBSD 8.0”
Other hypervisors people recommend
The four most recommended other hypervisors, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proxmox VE | 208 | 60 | 78% | 12 | 3 yrs16 owners | Approved |
| Incus | 90 | 8 | 92% | 12 | 6 mo5 owners | Approved |
| KVM | 32 | 9 | 78% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Hyper-V | 17 | 9 | 65% | 9 | — | — |
| Xen hypervisorThis page | 12 | 5 | 71% | 7 | — | Approved |
What people said
14 of the 17 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Even Xen (VM used by Qubes) periodically has CVEs”
“We believe that the Xen hypervisor architecture better suits the needs of our project.”
“Xen prevents modifying ACPI data.”
“I am ripping off the best ideas from xen/Qubes”
“was running Xen happily more than two decades ago.”
“Probably the easiest way to do this would be to start from Xen”
“requires another layer of abstraction and has less out of the box native support”
“KVM has a much larger attack surface than Xen”
“Xen has "virtualization" magic pixie dust”
“excellent virtual machine platforms (KVM, Xen and even VMWare)”
“a very elegant and robust answer for strong isolation of networking and resources like CPU and RAM”
“sometimes we have to implement things by hand. But it has enabled us to do things that others can't achieve”
“VT-d, which statistically has much less security issues than Xen itself”
“high-quality practical implementations”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.