{"slug": "incus", "name": "Incus", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "Community fork of LXD for managing Linux system containers and virtual machines.", "recommenders": 18, "commenters": 23, "warners": 0, "score": 17.712, "rising": 4.73, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-10-23", "why": "HN commenters use Incus to sandbox AI coding agents and as a Proxmox alternative for running VMs and containers, praising its profiles and simple permissions.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 21, "neutral": 5, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [5, 1, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 1, 4, 2, 2], "listed": true, "loved": ["Agent sandboxing", "VM and containers"], "caveat": "Networking setup", "short_quote": "It\u2019s my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to setup a new virtualized environment.", "icon": true, "domain": "linuxcontainers.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Incus", "Incus OS", "incus", "IncusOS"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters use Incus to sandbox AI coding agents", "cites": [{"id": 787976496, "item_id": 49248531, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49248531", "by": "geoka9", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use a similar setup, but using Incus and cli agents which I drive via ssh.", "excerpt": "My understanding is that the OP is not running any heavy tools/chains inside the sandbox? I use a similar setup, but using Incus and cli agents which I drive via ssh. I make sure I can (and do) rebuild the VM from scratch after every session or so. Currently considering using ACP for codex so that I can do more of the driving from my editor (emacs, over ssh) and something similar for claude code (it doesn't seem to b", "context": "", "use_case": "VM sandbox for coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787787616, "item_id": 49236726, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49236726", "by": "barishnamazov", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That should be reasonable security while having nice control for resources.", "excerpt": "I have a VM in which I run my general compute. In that VM I use incus linux container and run these tools as unauthorized user of the container. That should be reasonable security while having nice control for resources.", "context": "runs general compute in a VM", "use_case": "isolating agent tools in containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenChamber: An Agentic Development Environment"}, {"id": 781031907, "item_id": 48814494, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814494", "by": "uday_singlr", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "done in a sandboxed Incus container", "excerpt": "Haven't experienced flow state in a while, since CC became my default IDE :) I built my version of a meta harness that guides claude and codex in a code => review loop. I typically brainstorm a task and dispatch it. The actual coding and review by the LLMs is done in a sandboxed Incus container. A WIP https://github.com/standardapplied/sail", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxing coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?"}]}, {"text": " and as a Proxmox alternative for running VMs and containers, praising its profiles and simple permissions.", "cites": [{"id": 734858736, "item_id": 45928671, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928671", "by": "genshii", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox.", "excerpt": "I used Proxmox for years to run a fairly comprehensive homelab, and a few months ago replaced the entire thing with Incus (on a debian host, haven't tried IncusOS yet). Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox. One thing in particular is permissions in unprivileged containers. In Proxmox, you have to do a bunch of somewhat confusing ID mapping. In Incus, it's as simple as settin", "context": "runs a homelab", "use_case": "homelab virtualization", "switched_from": "Proxmox", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734946800, "item_id": 45934175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45934175", "by": "veidr", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.)", "excerpt": "Interesting. I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.), for many reasons, but one minor reason is that you can install it on Debian or Arch or whatever Linux you like. It's a comprehensive management layer for VMs and Linux containers, with good CLI, web UI, cloning/moving/copying/migrating etc., but... why does that need to be an OS? However, I'm confident that if that is what", "context": "", "use_case": "managing VMs and Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 745064080, "item_id": 46566505, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566505", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Incus and Proxmox for this, more mature and have quite a bit built around them.", "excerpt": "I use Incus and Proxmox for this, more mature and have quite a bit built around them. What does Containarium bring to the table compared to them?", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Linux dev environments", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Hosting 100 Linux dev environments on one VM using LXC"}, {"id": 745324288, "item_id": 46582768, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582768", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want something of a middle compromise, I can't recommend incus enough.", "excerpt": "I understand where you are coming from but no, containers aren't enough isolation. If you are running some public service, it might have bugs and of course we see some RCE issues as well or there can be some misconfig and containers by default dont provide enough security if an hacker tries to break in. Containers aren't secure in that sense. Virtual machines are the intended use case for that. But they can be full o", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating self-hosted services", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting"}]}, {"text": " Few complaints come up; those raised are fiddly networking setup", "cites": [{"id": 798480048, "item_id": 49905003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905003", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use incus/LXD for this", "excerpt": "I use incus/LXD for this, though it does require a bit of faffing around with the networking. The benefit is that its super low overhead (no VM).", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux"}]}, {"text": " and the RAM cost of full VMs compared with containers.", "cites": [{"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Agent sandboxing", "summary": "Commenters run AI coding agents in throwaway Incus containers or VMs to keep them isolated.", "quotes": [{"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787878640, "item_id": 49242415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242415", "by": "radlad", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing.", "excerpt": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing. Highly recommend incus-windows if you need to do any Windows testing. Having agents validate Windows behavior has reduced so much toil for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "throwaway test containers and VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787870016, "item_id": 49241876, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241876", "by": "pbasista", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Linux Containers managed by Incus for working with Claude.", "excerpt": "I use Linux Containers managed by Incus for working with Claude. I have a dedicated container for that. It can run its own Docker daemon and other system services if needed. Apart from the Claude login token, it has no SSH keys or other credentials. I push everything I need to it from the local machine. And I pull the Claude generated outputs from it. Of course, this kind of setup requires a stack which can run or at", "context": "", "use_case": "isolated container for Claude", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}]}, {"label": "VM and containers", "summary": "Manages both VMs and Linux containers, recommended over Proxmox and as a middle ground between containers and VMs.", "quotes": [{"id": 734946800, "item_id": 45934175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45934175", "by": "veidr", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.)", "excerpt": "Interesting. I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.), for many reasons, but one minor reason is that you can install it on Debian or Arch or whatever Linux you like. It's a comprehensive management layer for VMs and Linux containers, with good CLI, web UI, cloning/moving/copying/migrating etc., but... why does that need to be an OS? However, I'm confident that if that is what", "context": "", "use_case": "managing VMs and Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734858736, "item_id": 45928671, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928671", "by": "genshii", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox.", "excerpt": "I used Proxmox for years to run a fairly comprehensive homelab, and a few months ago replaced the entire thing with Incus (on a debian host, haven't tried IncusOS yet). Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox. One thing in particular is permissions in unprivileged containers. In Proxmox, you have to do a bunch of somewhat confusing ID mapping. In Incus, it's as simple as settin", "context": "runs a homelab", "use_case": "homelab virtualization", "switched_from": "Proxmox", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 745324288, "item_id": 46582768, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582768", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want something of a middle compromise, I can't recommend incus enough.", "excerpt": "I understand where you are coming from but no, containers aren't enough isolation. If you are running some public service, it might have bugs and of course we see some RCE issues as well or there can be some misconfig and containers by default dont provide enough security if an hacker tries to break in. Containers aren't secure in that sense. Virtual machines are the intended use case for that. But they can be full o", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating self-hosted services", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting"}]}, {"label": "Dev and testing", "summary": "Used for per-developer environments and testing software across Linux distributions and Windows.", "quotes": [{"id": 775556128, "item_id": 48472258, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48472258", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Most of my team's development happens on beefy desktop machine in incus containers per dev+project", "excerpt": "Most of my team's development happens on beefy desktop machine in incus containers per dev+project (so you run yourname-projname-dev). It has its own tailscale inside so you can open it like regular https website or give to another dev to check out \u2013 no need to deploy your branch somewhere, just run it. New dev onboard takes 10 minutes from zero to dev env with VSCode remote development. I would really love if apple ", "context": "team lead with shared dev machine", "use_case": "per-developer dev environments", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS Container Machines"}, {"id": 743325888, "item_id": 46457868, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457868", "by": "fraserphysics", "date": "2026-01-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Just last month, I used incus to test a software package in 6 Linux distributions.", "excerpt": "I thought that macOS was proprietary, and that apple only allowed it to be run on apple hardware. Just last month, I used incus to test a software package in 6 Linux distributions. I want to also test the package in macOS. Must I get a license from apple to do that with Quickemu?", "context": "", "use_case": "testing packages across distros", "switched_from": "", "story": "Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux VMs"}, {"id": 787878640, "item_id": 49242415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242415", "by": "radlad", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing.", "excerpt": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing. Highly recommend incus-windows if you need to do any Windows testing. Having agents validate Windows behavior has reduced so much toil for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "throwaway test containers and VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}]}, {"label": "Configuration features", "summary": "Profiles, simple ID shifting, architecture tagging in clusters, and a good CLI and web UI simplify setup.", "quotes": [{"id": 734858736, "item_id": 45928671, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928671", "by": "genshii", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox.", "excerpt": "I used Proxmox for years to run a fairly comprehensive homelab, and a few months ago replaced the entire thing with Incus (on a debian host, haven't tried IncusOS yet). Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox. One thing in particular is permissions in unprivileged containers. In Proxmox, you have to do a bunch of somewhat confusing ID mapping. In Incus, it's as simple as settin", "context": "runs a homelab", "use_case": "homelab virtualization", "switched_from": "Proxmox", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734870992, "item_id": 45929437, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929437", "by": "octagons", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It\u2019s my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to setup a new virtualized environment.", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been running an Incus cluster of 3 fairly beefy servers for about a year now. It\u2019s my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to setup a new virtualized environment. One of my favorite features is how you can tag different cluster members for different architectures. In the same cluster, I can have traditional dual-socket x86 servers with a dozen DIMM slots as well as Raspberry Pis. The architecture tagging lets", "context": "deals with a lot of embedded firmware; runs a 3-server cluster", "use_case": "clustered virtualization and containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734946800, "item_id": 45934175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45934175", "by": "veidr", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.)", "excerpt": "Interesting. I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.), for many reasons, but one minor reason is that you can install it on Debian or Arch or whatever Linux you like. It's a comprehensive management layer for VMs and Linux containers, with good CLI, web UI, cloning/moving/copying/migrating etc., but... why does that need to be an OS? However, I'm confident that if that is what", "context": "", "use_case": "managing VMs and Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}]}, {"label": "Low overhead", "summary": "LXC containers use far less memory than separate VMs.", "quotes": [{"id": 798480048, "item_id": 49905003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905003", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use incus/LXD for this", "excerpt": "I use incus/LXD for this, though it does require a bit of faffing around with the networking. The benefit is that its super low overhead (no VM).", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux"}, {"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}]}, {"label": "Reliability", "summary": "One user reports rock-solid performance running it in production for most of a year.", "quotes": [{"id": 778887312, "item_id": 48680457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680457", "by": "iotapi322", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Rock solid performance.", "excerpt": "I've been using incus for a while now and actually run it on a side project in production for the better part of a year. Rock solid performance.", "context": "", "use_case": "side project in production", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Networking setup", "summary": "Networking can take some fiddling to configure.", "quotes": [{"id": 798480048, "item_id": 49905003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905003", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use incus/LXD for this", "excerpt": "I use incus/LXD for this, though it does require a bit of faffing around with the networking. The benefit is that its super low overhead (no VM).", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux"}]}, {"label": "VM memory cost", "summary": "Ubuntu VMs started by Incus use at least 512 MB of RAM each, which adds up across many sandboxes.", "quotes": [{"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}]}], "who": [{"by": "barishnamazov", "context": "runs general compute in a VM", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49236726", "date": "2026-08-09"}, {"by": "k_bx", "context": "team lead with shared dev machine", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48472258", "date": "2026-06-09"}, {"by": "octagons", "context": "deals with a lot of embedded firmware; runs a 3-server cluster", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929437", "date": "2025-11-14"}, {"by": "genshii", "context": "runs a homelab", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928671", "date": "2025-11-14"}], "tags": ["for AI agent sandboxing", "for homelabs", "for teams", "for cross-distro testing", "for Linux users"], "use_cases": ["immutable infrastructure", "containers", "wsl-like linux containers", "lightweight linux containers", "vm sandbox for coding agents", "throwaway test containers and vms"], "compared": [{"slug": "proxmox", "name": "Proxmox", "co": 6, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "lxd", "name": "LXD", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "docker", "name": "Docker", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "lxc", "name": "LXC", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "okd", "name": "OKD", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "codex", "name": "Codex", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45821154", "title": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49239751", "title": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50202681", "title": "Docker is weird", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50124646", "title": "Self-hosted infrastructure with Incus OS", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49894351", "title": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48679385", "title": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 5}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 3}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803289712, "item_id": 50205607, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205607", "by": "fbn79", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have recently discovered INCUS, very nice alternative to docker when a simple container is not sufficient", "excerpt": "I have recently discovered INCUS, very nice alternative to docker when a simple container is not sufficient https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/", "context": "", "use_case": "containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker is weird"}, {"id": 803262403, "item_id": 50203900, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50203900", "by": "schmichael", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "lxc forked it to incus to be community managed", "excerpt": "lxc never had a daemon but Canonical added one (lxd in 2015) and lxc forked it to incus to be community managed. rkt (2013) was CoreOS's alternative to Docker and was daemon-less and failed. Podman came along relatively late (2018) and benefited from a lot of Linux kernel and systemd improvements since Docker was designed. So while arguably the client/server model is outdated for container management tools, I'm not s", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker is weird"}, {"id": 802157920, "item_id": 50134870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50134870", "by": "roughly", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "You\u2019re right, I\u2019ll take a look at Incus.", "excerpt": "Re-reading your comment, realize I\u2019d missed your point. You\u2019re right, I\u2019ll take a look at Incus. I also appreciate the pointer to OKD - until the future arrives, it\u2019s nice to have a more pleasant present, too.", "context": "", "use_case": "immutable infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosted infrastructure with Incus OS"}, {"id": 802138482, "item_id": 50133655, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50133655", "by": "astralkraft", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "A complete rethink of immutable infrastructure with a decade of additional hindsight.", "excerpt": "I think you're confusing this. Talos is kubernetes. It can only be as good or as bad as Kubernetes. This is different. A complete rethink of immutable infrastructure with a decade of additional hindsight. I switched from Talos to OKD. I honestly don't miss Talos, but would like to be done with k8s altogether.", "context": "", "use_case": "immutable infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "Self-hosted infrastructure with Incus OS"}, {"id": 798535536, "item_id": 49908471, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49908471", "by": "bketelsen", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That was my go-to for the past 8+ years as well.", "excerpt": "That was my go-to for the past 8+ years as well. In fact, a different angle on this same problem I wrote is Blincus: https://blincus.dev I think I lost the plot on it though and tried to do too much, automate too much.", "context": "", "use_case": "WSL-like Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux"}, {"id": 798480048, "item_id": 49905003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905003", "by": "seabrookmx", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use incus/LXD for this", "excerpt": "I use incus/LXD for this, though it does require a bit of faffing around with the networking. The benefit is that its super low overhead (no VM).", "context": "", "use_case": "lightweight Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: NSL \u2013 WSL for Linux"}, {"id": 787976496, "item_id": 49248531, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49248531", "by": "geoka9", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use a similar setup, but using Incus and cli agents which I drive via ssh.", "excerpt": "My understanding is that the OP is not running any heavy tools/chains inside the sandbox? I use a similar setup, but using Incus and cli agents which I drive via ssh. I make sure I can (and do) rebuild the VM from scratch after every session or so. Currently considering using ACP for codex so that I can do more of the driving from my editor (emacs, over ssh) and something similar for claude code (it doesn't seem to b", "context": "", "use_case": "VM sandbox for coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787878640, "item_id": 49242415, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49242415", "by": "radlad", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing.", "excerpt": "Love Incus and I'm using throwaway restricted projects for testing. Highly recommend incus-windows if you need to do any Windows testing. Having agents validate Windows behavior has reduced so much toil for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "throwaway test containers and VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787870016, "item_id": 49241876, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241876", "by": "pbasista", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Linux Containers managed by Incus for working with Claude.", "excerpt": "I use Linux Containers managed by Incus for working with Claude. I have a dedicated container for that. It can run its own Docker daemon and other system services if needed. Apart from the Claude login token, it has no SSH keys or other credentials. I push everything I need to it from the local machine. And I pull the Claude generated outputs from it. Of course, this kind of setup requires a stack which can run or at", "context": "", "use_case": "isolated container for Claude", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787858720, "item_id": 49241170, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49241170", "by": "dist-epoch", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents.", "excerpt": "An Ubuntu Server VM, like the ones started by Incus, use at least 512 MB of RAM per instance. If you spawn 10 sandbox VMs, you already pay 5 GB RAM just to sit there idle. You also pay a CPU cost, you have 10 kernels managing stuff, but arguably it doesn't matter that much given CPU core counts. I use something in between - a single Ubuntu VM, into which I spawn multiple Incus LXC containers for the agents. The conta", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating AI agents in LXC containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Sandboxes \u2013 Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents"}, {"id": 787787616, "item_id": 49236726, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49236726", "by": "barishnamazov", "date": "2026-08-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That should be reasonable security while having nice control for resources.", "excerpt": "I have a VM in which I run my general compute. In that VM I use incus linux container and run these tools as unauthorized user of the container. That should be reasonable security while having nice control for resources.", "context": "runs general compute in a VM", "use_case": "isolating agent tools in containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenChamber: An Agentic Development Environment"}, {"id": 783869264, "item_id": 48991829, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48991829", "by": "JeremyNT", "date": "2026-07-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I spooled up an incus VM myself first", "excerpt": "The way I did it, I've got a convention where I store git checkouts in a specific directory on my laptop. I use the repo name as an argument and the wrapper script creates / shells into the per-project VM. It uses cloud-init for the initial setup and injects the agent's config file and some other stuff in a ro mount from my laptop. That single subdirectory is mounted rw into a conventional location inside the VM. I i", "context": "", "use_case": "per-project dev VMs for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Clawk \u2013 Give coding agents a disposable Linux VM, not your laptop"}, {"id": 781031907, "item_id": 48814494, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48814494", "by": "uday_singlr", "date": "2026-07-06", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "done in a sandboxed Incus container", "excerpt": "Haven't experienced flow state in a while, since CC became my default IDE :) I built my version of a meta harness that guides claude and codex in a code => review loop. I typically brainstorm a task and dispatch it. The actual coding and review by the LLMs is done in a sandboxed Incus container. A WIP https://github.com/standardapplied/sail", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxing coding agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is anyone experimenting with different ways of using LLMs for coding?"}, {"id": 778889376, "item_id": 48680586, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680586", "by": "sbstp", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is great.", "excerpt": "Incus is great. I've been trying to revive an unmaintained ansible collection to manage incus resources https://github.com/sbstp/ansible-collection-incus", "context": "", "use_case": "managing containers and VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus"}, {"id": 778887312, "item_id": 48680457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680457", "by": "iotapi322", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Rock solid performance.", "excerpt": "I've been using incus for a while now and actually run it on a side project in production for the better part of a year. Rock solid performance.", "context": "", "use_case": "side project in production", "switched_from": "", "story": "Migrating from Proxmox to NixOS and Incus"}, {"id": 775556128, "item_id": 48472258, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48472258", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Most of my team's development happens on beefy desktop machine in incus containers per dev+project", "excerpt": "Most of my team's development happens on beefy desktop machine in incus containers per dev+project (so you run yourname-projname-dev). It has its own tailscale inside so you can open it like regular https website or give to another dev to check out \u2013 no need to deploy your branch somewhere, just run it. New dev onboard takes 10 minutes from zero to dev env with VSCode remote development. I would really love if apple ", "context": "team lead with shared dev machine", "use_case": "per-developer dev environments", "switched_from": "", "story": "macOS Container Machines"}, {"id": 745324288, "item_id": 46582768, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46582768", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want something of a middle compromise, I can't recommend incus enough.", "excerpt": "I understand where you are coming from but no, containers aren't enough isolation. If you are running some public service, it might have bugs and of course we see some RCE issues as well or there can be some misconfig and containers by default dont provide enough security if an hacker tries to break in. Containers aren't secure in that sense. Virtual machines are the intended use case for that. But they can be full o", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating self-hosted services", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is the Year of Self-hosting"}, {"id": 745185824, "item_id": 46574114, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574114", "by": "_kb", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out LXC and the wider Incus set of projects", "excerpt": "Check out LXC and the wider Incus set of projects: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/. Running IncusOS on some local hardware with ZFS underneath is a phenomenally powerful sandbox.", "context": "", "use_case": "local sandboxed containers/VMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745185825, "item_id": 46574114, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574114", "by": "_kb", "date": "2026-01-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Running IncusOS on some local hardware with ZFS underneath is a phenomenally powerful sandbox.", "excerpt": "Check out LXC and the wider Incus set of projects: https://linuxcontainers.org/incus/. Running IncusOS on some local hardware with ZFS underneath is a phenomenally powerful sandbox.", "context": "", "use_case": "local sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "Code and Let Live"}, {"id": 745064080, "item_id": 46566505, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566505", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2026-01-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Incus and Proxmox for this, more mature and have quite a bit built around them.", "excerpt": "I use Incus and Proxmox for this, more mature and have quite a bit built around them. What does Containarium bring to the table compared to them?", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting Linux dev environments", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Hosting 100 Linux dev environments on one VM using LXC"}, {"id": 743325888, "item_id": 46457868, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46457868", "by": "fraserphysics", "date": "2026-01-01", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Just last month, I used incus to test a software package in 6 Linux distributions.", "excerpt": "I thought that macOS was proprietary, and that apple only allowed it to be run on apple hardware. Just last month, I used incus to test a software package in 6 Linux distributions. I want to also test the package in macOS. Must I get a license from apple to do that with Quickemu?", "context": "", "use_case": "testing packages across distros", "switched_from": "", "story": "Quickemu: Quickly create and run optimised Windows, macOS and Linux VMs"}, {"id": 742412673, "item_id": 46400792, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46400792", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2025-12-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am overall very pleasant with incus", "excerpt": "Awesome project which I first thought might have something to do with microsft .exe format but not that big of a deal and I find this project really cool and I had thought about similar project like these so kudos that you built something like this! I mean it and I wish the best of luck for the project That being said, I tried to look at it for asap golang project deployments and I am the creator of https://spocklet-", "context": "", "use_case": "running VMs/containers on desktop", "switched_from": "", "story": "Exe.dev/"}, {"id": 734946800, "item_id": 45934175, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45934175", "by": "veidr", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.)", "excerpt": "Interesting. I recommend Incus over other hypervisor-oriented OS distributions (Proxmox, etc.), for many reasons, but one minor reason is that you can install it on Debian or Arch or whatever Linux you like. It's a comprehensive management layer for VMs and Linux containers, with good CLI, web UI, cloning/moving/copying/migrating etc., but... why does that need to be an OS? However, I'm confident that if that is what", "context": "", "use_case": "managing VMs and Linux containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734924512, "item_id": 45932782, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932782", "by": "acters", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is amazing", "excerpt": "I use incus to pass a containerized kali os the Wayland and x11 sockets, and whatever else maybe in the /run/user/1000 folder and x11 socket folder, like pipewire. It isn't perfect, but it's really nice spawning a shell/bar/etc inside the container and it goes over the current Wayland desktop. Then I am able to use it to spawn other graphical apps. It works really well. Incus is amazing, or lxc and wayland in general", "context": "", "use_case": "containerized Kali with Wayland", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734870992, "item_id": 45929437, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45929437", "by": "octagons", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It\u2019s my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to setup a new virtualized environment.", "excerpt": "I\u2019ve been running an Incus cluster of 3 fairly beefy servers for about a year now. It\u2019s my go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to setup a new virtualized environment. One of my favorite features is how you can tag different cluster members for different architectures. In the same cluster, I can have traditional dual-socket x86 servers with a dozen DIMM slots as well as Raspberry Pis. The architecture tagging lets", "context": "deals with a lot of embedded firmware; runs a 3-server cluster", "use_case": "clustered virtualization and containers", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734858736, "item_id": 45928671, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928671", "by": "genshii", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox.", "excerpt": "I used Proxmox for years to run a fairly comprehensive homelab, and a few months ago replaced the entire thing with Incus (on a debian host, haven't tried IncusOS yet). Incus is amazing and it makes so many things so much easier compared to Proxmox. One thing in particular is permissions in unprivileged containers. In Proxmox, you have to do a bunch of somewhat confusing ID mapping. In Incus, it's as simple as settin", "context": "runs a homelab", "use_case": "homelab virtualization", "switched_from": "Proxmox", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734852592, "item_id": 45928287, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928287", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "for homelab-like setup Incus OS seems more like a sweet spot", "excerpt": "Really excited to try this out. I have a fleet of containers on ubuntu + incus. Not only does this do ZFS optimization, I look forward having easy container optimized backup, live cluster migration (to a different machine without downtime) and so much more. I use Proxmox on fat servers, but for homelab-like setup Incus OS seems more like a sweet spot", "context": "runs a fleet of containers on Ubuntu + Incus", "use_case": "homelab container hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}, {"id": 734852593, "item_id": 45928287, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45928287", "by": "k_bx", "date": "2025-11-14", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have a fleet of containers on ubuntu + incus.", "excerpt": "Really excited to try this out. I have a fleet of containers on ubuntu + incus. Not only does this do ZFS optimization, I look forward having easy container optimized backup, live cluster migration (to a different machine without downtime) and so much more. I use Proxmox on fat servers, but for homelab-like setup Incus OS seems more like a sweet spot", "context": "", "use_case": "container fleet", "switched_from": "", "story": "Incus-OS: Immutable Linux OS to run Incus as a hypervisor"}]}