{"slug": "mirageos", "name": "MirageOS", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 3.628, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-12-10", "latest": "2026-10-21", "why": "I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2, "compare": 2, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "mirage.io", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://mirage.io", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["MirageOS"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 802862928, "item_id": 50178933, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50178933", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-10-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Only for those ideologically against GC in systems programming languages.", "excerpt": "Only for those ideologically against GC in systems programming languages. https://mirage.io > Docker Desktop avoids this problem by forwarding all traffic at user-level via vpnkit, a TCP/IP stack written in OCaml on top of the network protocol libraries of the MirageOS Unikernel project. https://www.docker.com/blog/how-docker-desktop-networking-works-under-the-hood https://ocaml.github.io/ocamlunix/ocamlunix.pdf And ", "context": "", "use_case": "Unikernel OS libraries", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is an exciting year for the Rust compiler (and me)"}, {"id": 759210848, "item_id": 47450678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47450678", "by": "radicaldreamer", "date": "2026-03-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "MirageOS was the iPhone Home Screen of that time.", "excerpt": "Still a classic set of z80 apps including a symbolic equations solver for the TI-83. I played and used the hell out of these in high school. MirageOS was the iPhone Home Screen of that time. https://detachedsolutions.com/main/", "context": "", "use_case": "calculator shell / launcher", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drugwars for the TI-82/83/83 Calculators"}, {"id": 756652240, "item_id": 47290765, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47290765", "by": "phplovesong", "date": "2026-03-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "excerpt": "We have shipped unikernels for the last decade. Zero sec issues so far. I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "context": "shipped unikernels for a decade", "use_case": "unikernels as Docker alternative", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Decade of Docker Containers"}, {"id": 739622369, "item_id": 46226398, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46226398", "by": "eru", "date": "2025-12-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See eg https://mirage.io/", "excerpt": "> GNU/Linux isn't the only system out there, [...] Yes? I'm especially keen on the project to make just 'Linux' without any Gnu components. Jokes aside, yes, other operating systems exist. > [...] and yes some parts of it are outdated in modern platforms, especially Apple, Google, Microsoft OSes and Cloud infrastructure. Well, also on modern hardware in general. POSIX's idea about storage abstractions don't gel well ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "phplovesong", "context": "shipped unikernels for a decade", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47290765", "date": "2026-03-07"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["unikernel os libraries", "calculator shell / launcher", "unikernels as docker alternative"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50166502", "title": "2026 is an exciting year for the Rust compiler (and me)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49978333", "title": "What is Codemode", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49944912", "title": "FTL: A new operating system for clouds", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448566", "title": "Drugwars for the TI-82/83/83 Calculators", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47289311", "title": "A Decade of Docker Containers", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46676081", "title": "On The Coming Industrialisation of Exploit Generation with LLMs", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"compare": 1, "neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 802862928, "item_id": 50178933, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50178933", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-10-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Only for those ideologically against GC in systems programming languages.", "excerpt": "Only for those ideologically against GC in systems programming languages. https://mirage.io > Docker Desktop avoids this problem by forwarding all traffic at user-level via vpnkit, a TCP/IP stack written in OCaml on top of the network protocol libraries of the MirageOS Unikernel project. https://www.docker.com/blog/how-docker-desktop-networking-works-under-the-hood https://ocaml.github.io/ocamlunix/ocamlunix.pdf And ", "context": "", "use_case": "Unikernel OS libraries", "switched_from": "", "story": "2026 is an exciting year for the Rust compiler (and me)"}, {"id": 799854960, "item_id": 49990935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49990935", "by": "ignoramous", "date": "2026-10-07", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Anil Madhavapeddy's take on such setups: A compiler that just refuses to stop.", "excerpt": "> Dan Ingalls who said \"An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one.\" Anil Madhavapeddy's take on such setups: A compiler that just refuses to stop. MirageOS is a system written in pure OCaml where not only do common network protocols and file systems and high-level things like web servers and web stacks can all be expressed in OCaml but the compiler just refus", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "What is Codemode"}, {"id": 799141584, "item_id": 49946349, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49946349", "by": "mrtesthah", "date": "2026-10-03", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "MirageOS also bills itself as an OS in a library", "excerpt": "MirageOS also bills itself as an OS in a library \u2014 is this similar? https://mirage.io/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "FTL: A new operating system for clouds"}, {"id": 759210848, "item_id": 47450678, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47450678", "by": "radicaldreamer", "date": "2026-03-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "MirageOS was the iPhone Home Screen of that time.", "excerpt": "Still a classic set of z80 apps including a symbolic equations solver for the TI-83. I played and used the hell out of these in high school. MirageOS was the iPhone Home Screen of that time. https://detachedsolutions.com/main/", "context": "", "use_case": "calculator shell / launcher", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drugwars for the TI-82/83/83 Calculators"}, {"id": 756652240, "item_id": 47290765, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47290765", "by": "phplovesong", "date": "2026-03-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "excerpt": "We have shipped unikernels for the last decade. Zero sec issues so far. I highly recommend looking into the unikernel space for a docker alternative. MirageOS being a good start.", "context": "shipped unikernels for a decade", "use_case": "unikernels as Docker alternative", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Decade of Docker Containers"}, {"id": 747018033, "item_id": 46688627, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46688627", "by": "eru", "date": "2026-01-19", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "or https://mirage.io/", "excerpt": "Yes, you can have docker container images that only contain the actual binary you want to run. But if you are using a VM, you don't even need the Linux kernel: some systems let you compiler your program to run directly on the hypervisor. See eg https://github.com/hermit-os/hermit-rs or https://mirage.io/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "On The Coming Industrialisation of Exploit Generation with LLMs"}, {"id": 742973216, "item_id": 46435826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46435826", "by": "richardwhiuk", "date": "2025-12-30", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "I wonder how it compares to https://mirage.io/", "excerpt": "I wonder how it compares to https://mirage.io/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Toro: Deploy Applications as Unikernels"}, {"id": 739622369, "item_id": 46226398, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46226398", "by": "eru", "date": "2025-12-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See eg https://mirage.io/", "excerpt": "> GNU/Linux isn't the only system out there, [...] Yes? I'm especially keen on the project to make just 'Linux' without any Gnu components. Jokes aside, yes, other operating systems exist. > [...] and yes some parts of it are outdated in modern platforms, especially Apple, Google, Microsoft OSes and Cloud infrastructure. Well, also on modern hardware in general. POSIX's idea about storage abstractions don't gel well ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Rust in the kernel is no longer experimental"}]}