{"slug": "smolmachines", "name": "smolmachines", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.144, "rising": 1.67, "first": "2026-06-26", "latest": "2026-09-21", "why": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "icon": false, "domain": "smolmachines.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://smolmachines.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["smolmachines", "smol machines"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 796505264, "item_id": 49781579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781579", "by": "chrisweekly", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "excerpt": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "context": "", "use_case": "microVMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "AX \u2013 Google\u2019s Open Agentic Orchestrator"}, {"id": 792006064, "item_id": 49500379, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500379", "by": "K0IN", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smolmachines is a wonderful program to solve this", "excerpt": "I just want to put this out there, smolmachines is a wonderful program to solve this, I use this mostly for stuff needing docker socket / docker in docker (example strix and agents). (I'm using podman on my host)", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating docker socket / docker-in-docker", "switched_from": "", "story": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root"}, {"id": 779023826, "item_id": 48688989, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48688989", "by": "dbmikus", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://smolmachines.com/", "excerpt": "Why do you want to self-host vs. using one of the many providers out there? Daytona, E2B, OpenComputer, Freestyle, Blaxel, Vercel, Modal, Cloudflare, Tensorlake, Superserve, etc. etc. Some of them work by pre-purchasing credits, so you can control the blast radius of spend. Also, if you want a more embedded sandbox runtime as a library instead of a daemon + REST API, you can check out libkrun (and friendly layers on ", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["microvms", "isolating docker socket / docker-in-docker", "sandboxing agents", "sandboxes"], "compared": [], "makers": [{"id": 782190609, "item_id": 48886913, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48886913", "by": "binsquare", "date": "2026-07-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smol machines: just in time cloud infrastructure", "excerpt": "smol machines: just in time cloud infrastructure https://www.smolmachines.com I am building it on top of a new primitive called smolvm: a hybrid that combines isolation of VM with speed and flexibility of containers. https://github.com/smol-machines/smolvm", "context": "", "use_case": "cloud infrastructure", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49780797", "title": "AX \u2013 Google\u2019s Open Agentic Orchestrator", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49499854", "title": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49214994", "title": "Claude Code: Starting August 14, auto mode will be the default permission mode", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48884984", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642510", "title": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 796505264, "item_id": 49781579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49781579", "by": "chrisweekly", "date": "2026-09-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "excerpt": "For microvms, take a look at https://smolmachines.com", "context": "", "use_case": "microVMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "AX \u2013 Google\u2019s Open Agentic Orchestrator"}, {"id": 792006064, "item_id": 49500379, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49500379", "by": "K0IN", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "smolmachines is a wonderful program to solve this", "excerpt": "I just want to put this out there, smolmachines is a wonderful program to solve this, I use this mostly for stuff needing docker socket / docker in docker (example strix and agents). (I'm using podman on my host)", "context": "", "use_case": "isolating docker socket / docker-in-docker", "switched_from": "", "story": "Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root"}, {"id": 787484660, "item_id": 49217791, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49217791", "by": "abound", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'll be sandboxing agents (with tools like nono, smolmachines, etc) going forward", "excerpt": "I don't disagree with anything you said here, but I find auto-mode is too permissive on the reading side of things. I used Claude this morning to convert the financial books for my nonprofit from some export of a proprietary software (Aplos) to plaintext accounting (Beancount), and was surprised to find it had found my personal Beancount ledger elsewhere on my hard drive and modelled its plan on that. That was correc", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxing agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code: Starting August 14, auto mode will be the default permission mode"}, {"id": 779023826, "item_id": 48688989, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48688989", "by": "dbmikus", "date": "2026-06-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://smolmachines.com/", "excerpt": "Why do you want to self-host vs. using one of the many providers out there? Daytona, E2B, OpenComputer, Freestyle, Blaxel, Vercel, Modal, Cloudflare, Tensorlake, Superserve, etc. etc. Some of them work by pre-purchasing credits, so you can control the blast radius of spend. Also, if you want a more embedded sandbox runtime as a library instead of a daemon + REST API, you can check out libkrun (and friendly layers on ", "context": "", "use_case": "sandboxes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs"}]}