Firecracker microvm by firecracker-microvm
Secure and fast microVMs for serverless computing.
About Firecracker microvm
From the project's README at github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker. Lightly cleaned for readability; for the full source see the upstream repo.
Our mission is to enable secure, multi-tenant, minimal-overhead execution of container and function workloads.
Read more about the Firecracker Charter here. What is Firecracker?
Firecracker is an open source virtualization technology that is purpose-built for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant container and function-based services that provide serverless operational models. Firecracker runs workloads in lightweight virtual machines, called microVMs, which combine the security and isolation properties provided by hardware virtualization technology with the speed and flexibility of containers. Overview
The main component of Firecracker is a virtual machine monitor (VMM) that uses the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) to create and run microVMs. Firecracker has a minimalist design. It excludes unnecessary devices and guest-facing functionality to reduce the memory footprint and attack surface area of each microVM. This improves security, decreases the startup time, and increases hardware utilization. Firecracker has also been integrated in container runtimes, for example [Kata Containers](https://github.com/kata-con
Health score breakdown
6-dimension composite. See methodology for formula and weights.
Adoption signals
Real-world usage data, pulled from each registry. The bigger the numbers, the more battle-tested the project.
| Signal | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | 34k | github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker |
| GitHub forks | 2.4k | github.com/firecracker-microvm/firecracker |
| CRATES downloads (last month) | 135 | firecracker |
Release & maintenance
Is this project actively maintained, or about to die? Check the recency of last commit and last release.
| Project age | 8.6 years | since Oct 2017 |
| Last commit | 2 days ago | May 4, 2026 |
| Releases shipped | 88 | last: 29 days ago |
| Security policy | SECURITY.md | declared by maintainers |
Self-hosting cost across providers
Detected requirements: 4GB RAM, 40GB disk minimum. Cheapest plan per provider that meets the requirement.
| Provider | Plan | Specs | Monthly | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| hetzner | CAX11 | 2c · 4GB · 40GB | $4.13 USD | Deploy → |
| vultr | VC2 | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5 USD | Deploy → |
| linode | Nanode 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $5.12 USD | Deploy → |
| digitalocean | Basic Regular 1GB | 1c · 1GB · 25GB | $6 USD | Deploy → |
Security advisories
CVE-2026-1386. What people say on Hacker News
Ready to self-host Firecracker microvm?
Spin up a hetzner CAX11 (4GB RAM, 40GB disk) for $4.13/mo and follow the project's official install docs.
Data last refreshed May 7, 2026.
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