Topics / #virtualization

Virtualization projects on GitHub

Running virtual machines and microVMs for isolation and dev environments.

As of , the most-starred Virtualization projects on GitHub are uv (90.9K stars), windows (53.6K stars) and Docker-OSX (53K stars). GitHub.Locker tracks 81 Virtualization repositories with 1.2M stars combined. The fastest-growing on October 16 was DroidDeck, with +574 stars in a day.

81Projects
1.2MStars in total
+1.3KStars in a day
Browse in the catalog →github.com/topics/virtualization ↗

Hot right now

Most stars gained in a day · Oct 16

+574

DroidDeck

Droid-Deck/DroidDeck · ★ 10.4K

DroidDeck brings the SteamOS Big Picture experience to Android, letting you run Valve's Steam client and Windows games via Valve's ARM64 Proton on an Adreno-powered Android handheld.

+95

cua

trycua/cua · ★ 30K

An open-source stack for computer-use AI agents: desktop automation drivers, isolated cloud desktops, local macOS VMs, small specialist decision models, and benchmarks for training, evaluation, and data generation.

+93

Husk

Leviidev/Husk · ★ 2.2K

Husk is an Android app launcher for iPhone: drop in an APK, tap it, and the Android app opens full-screen, running either natively or through emulation.

+67

DroidDesk

orailnoor/DroidDesk · ★ 4.2K

DroidDesk turns an Android phone into a full Linux desktop using Termux, Termux:X11, TUR, and Proot, letting you run apps like VS Code, Firefox, LibreOffice, Blender, and even Metasploit directly on your phone.

The all-time top

81 projects · by stars

  1. #1 · astral-sh/uv

    uv

    uv is an extremely fast Python package and project manager, written in Rust. It aims to replace pip, pip-tools, pipx, poetry, pyenv, twine, and virtualenv with a single tool.

    90.9K
  2. #2 · dockur/windows

    windows

    dockur/windows runs a full, real Windows installation inside a Docker container, automatically downloading and installing it with no manual steps.

    53.6K
  3. #3 · sickcodes/Docker-OSX

    Docker-OSX

    Docker-OSX lets you run a full macOS virtual machine inside a Docker container using KVM, giving near-native performance for security research, CI/CD, and development without owning a real Mac.

    53K
  1. 4

    pretext

    50.8Kchenglou/pretext · TypeScript

    Pretext is a pure JavaScript/TypeScript library for multiline text measurement and layout — fast and accurate, including for languages you may not even know about.

  2. 5

    container

    50.8Kapple/container · Swift

    A tool for creating and running Linux containers as lightweight virtual machines on a Mac, optimized for Apple silicon.

  3. 6

    firecracker

    37.5Kfirecracker-microvm/firecracker · Rust

    Firecracker is an open-source virtualization technology for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant microVMs for container and function-based serverless workloads.

  4. 7

    UTM

    35.9Kutmapp/UTM · Swift

    UTM is a full system emulator and virtual machine host for iOS and macOS, built on QEMU, that lets you run Windows, Linux, and other operating systems directly on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

  5. 8

    WSL

    34.1Kmicrosoft/WSL · C++

    Windows Subsystem for Linux: a way to run Linux command-line tools, utilities and applications unmodified, directly on Windows, without the overhead of a traditional VM or a dual-boot setup.

  6. 9

    podman

    33.1Kpodman-container-tools/podman · Go

    Podman (the POD MANager) is a tool for managing OCI containers and images, volumes, and pods — groups of containers managed together. It is built on libpod, a container lifecycle management library included in the same repo.

  7. 10

    colima

    31.3Kabiosoft/colima · Go

    Colima provides container runtimes on macOS (and Linux) with minimal setup: it starts a Linux VM running Docker, Containerd or Incus, all managed through one simple command.

  8. 11

    cua

    30Ktrycua/cua · Rust

    An open-source stack for computer-use AI agents: desktop automation drivers, isolated cloud desktops, local macOS VMs, small specialist decision models, and benchmarks for training, evaluation, and data generation.

  9. 12

    ProxmoxVE

    29.8Kcommunity-scripts/ProxmoxVE · Shell

    A community-maintained set of one-command install scripts for Proxmox VE: paste a single line into your Proxmox shell and it sets up a popular self-hosted service as a ready container or VM.

  10. 13

    table

    28.5KTanStack/table · TypeScript

    TanStack Table is a headless table library for building powerful datagrids in TypeScript and JavaScript. You may know it by its adapter names — React Table, Vue Table, Solid Table, Svelte Table.

  11. 14

    vagrant

    27.2Khashicorp/vagrant · Ruby

    Vagrant is a tool for building and distributing portable development environments that can run locally or in the cloud.

  12. 15

    react-virtualized

    27.1Kbvaughn/react-virtualized · JavaScript

    react-virtualized is a set of React components for efficiently rendering large lists and tabular data by only rendering the rows or cells currently visible in the viewport.

  13. 16

    docker_practice

    26.3Kyeasy/docker_practice · Go

    An open-source Chinese book that takes you from zero to real DevOps practice with Docker: core concepts, internals and hands-on skills for developers, ops engineers and architects.

  14. 17

    awesome-sysadmin

    24.4Kkahun/awesome-sysadmin

    A curated, categorized list of open-source sysadmin tools and resources, covering backups, monitoring, configuration management, DNS, security, networking, and dozens of other admin topics.

  15. 18

    OSX-KVM

    23.7Kkholia/OSX-KVM · Shell

    Scripts and OpenCore configuration for running macOS as a virtual machine under QEMU/KVM on a Linux host, supporting recent macOS versions such as Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma.

  16. 19

    v86

    23.6Kcopy/v86 · JavaScript

    v86 is an x86 PC emulator that runs entirely in the browser. It emulates a Pentium-4-class CPU and classic PC hardware, translating guest machine code to WebAssembly at runtime for decent speed.

  17. 20

    winboat

    23.2Kwinboat-org/winboat · TypeScript

    WinBoat is a free, open-source Linux app that runs Windows applications with seamless desktop integration — each Windows app appears as a native OS-level window next to your Linux apps.

  18. 21

    lima

    22.1Klima-vm/lima · Go

    Lima launches Linux virtual machines with automatic file sharing and port forwarding, similar to WSL2. It was originally created to bring containerd and nerdctl to Mac users but is not limited to containers.

  19. 22

    macos

    21.7Kdockur/macos · Shell

    dockur/macos lets you run a full macOS virtual machine inside a Docker container, complete with a web-based viewer so you can control it right from your browser.

  20. 23

    gvisor

    19.7Kgoogle/gvisor · Go

    An application kernel for containers: it wraps running applications in a strong isolation layer from the host OS, implementing a Linux-like interface in memory-safe Go, entirely in userspace.

  21. 24

    webvm

    17.4Kleaningtech/webvm · Svelte

    WebVM is a Linux virtual machine that runs entirely in your browser — an unmodified Debian distribution with native development toolchains, fully client-side, no install and no server.

  22. 25

    react-window

    17.2Kbvaughn/react-window · TypeScript

    react-window is a React component library for efficiently rendering large lists and tabular data, avoiding the performance problems that come with rendering huge amounts of DOM elements at once.

  23. 26

    ZeroTierOne

    17.2Kzerotier/ZeroTierOne · C++

    ZeroTier is a smart programmable Ethernet switch: it makes your devices, VMs, containers, and apps talk to each other as if they all lived in the same data center or cloud region, wherever they physically are.

  24. 27

    redox

    16.6Kredox-os/redox · Rust

    Redox is an open-source operating system written in Rust that uses a microkernel architecture, aiming to be reliable, secure and usable while providing a full set of components like a file system, display server and core utilities.

  25. 28

    quickemu

    16.5Kquickemu-project/quickemu · Shell

    Quickemu is a command-line wrapper around QEMU that creates and runs optimised Windows, macOS and Linux virtual machines. You pick the OS; quickget downloads it and quickemu handles the configuration and launch.

  26. 29

    winapps

    16.1Kwinapps-org/winapps · Shell

    WinApps runs Windows applications like Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud on GNU/Linux with GNOME, KDE Plasma or XFCE, presenting them as if they were native apps, complete with shortcuts in your application menu.

  27. 30

    VirtualXposed

    16.1Kandroid-hacker/VirtualXposed · Java

    VirtualXposed is an Android app, built on VirtualApp and epic, that lets you run Xposed modules on your phone without root, an unlocked bootloader, or a custom system image.

  28. 31

    docker-android

    16Kbudtmo/docker-android · Python

    Docker-Android is a Docker image that ships a complete Android emulator in a container, built for Android app development and testing — native, web and hybrid apps.

  29. 32

    vphone-cli

    15.5KLakr233/vphone-cli · Swift

    vphone-cli boots a virtual iPhone on a Mac using Apple's Virtualization.framework, built on Apple's PCC research VM infrastructure, so you can run, test, and even jailbreak iOS without a physical device.

  30. 33

    Proxmox

    15.2Ktteck/Proxmox · Shell

    A collection of shell scripts for Proxmox VE that let you interactively create and configure LXC containers and virtual machines, offering both quick default setups and advanced customizable ones.

  31. 34

    xpipe

    14.6Kxpipe-io/xpipe · Java

    XPipe is a connection hub that lets you access your entire server infrastructure (SSH hosts, Docker, Kubernetes, VMs, cloud servers, WSL, and more) from one local desktop app, without installing any agent on the remote systems.

  32. 35

    macOS-Simple-KVM

    13.9Kfoxlet/macOS-Simple-KVM · Shell

    A set of scripts and tools for setting up a macOS virtual machine in QEMU, accelerated by KVM, so you can run macOS on a Linux host.

  33. 36

    qemu

    13.9Kqemu/qemu · C

    QEMU is a generic and open source machine and userspace emulator and virtualizer — software that lets one computer run systems and programs built for a completely different one.

  34. 37

    macos-virtualbox

    13.5Kmyspaghetti/macos-virtualbox · Shell

    A Bash script that automates creating a macOS virtual machine (Catalina, Mojave, or High Sierra) inside VirtualBox, using unmodified installation files downloaded directly from Apple's own servers.

  35. 38

    runc

    13.5Kopencontainers/runc · Go

    runc is a command-line tool for spawning and running containers on Linux according to the OCI (Open Container Initiative) specification.

  36. 39

    runner-images

    13.5Kactions/runner-images · PowerShell

    It's the source code GitHub uses to build the VM images behind GitHub-hosted Actions runners and Microsoft-hosted Azure Pipelines agents — Ubuntu, macOS and Windows machines pre-loaded with development tools.

  37. 40

    theZoo

    13.5Kytisf/theZoo · Python

    theZoo is a public repository of live malware samples and their source code, gathered so that anyone interested in malware analysis can study real specimens in an organized and accessible way.

  38. 41

    distrobox

    13.1K89luca89/distrobox · Go

    Distrobox lets you run any Linux distribution inside your terminal using containers, giving you backward and forward software compatibility while keeping the environment tightly integrated with your host system.

  39. 42

    CubeSandbox

    13KTencentCloud/CubeSandbox · Go

    CubeSandbox is a high-performance, secure sandbox service for running untrusted AI agent code, built on RustVMM and KVM with hardware-isolated MicroVMs.

  40. 43

    bocker

    12.7Kp8952/bocker · Shell

    Bocker is a minimal reimplementation of Docker written in roughly 100 lines of bash, built to demonstrate how core container functionality works under the hood.

  41. 44

    netboot.xyz

    12.5Knetbootxyz/netboot.xyz · Jinja

    netboot.xyz is a network-based boot menu built on iPXE: you boot a machine from a small bootloader image and pick almost any operating system or utility disk from a menu, without downloading ISOs beforehand.

  42. 45

    devbox

    12.4Kjetify-com/devbox · Go

    Devbox is a command-line tool that creates isolated, reproducible development shells by declaring packages in a devbox.json file, using Nix under the hood instead of Docker or a VM.

  43. 46

    waydroid

    12.4Kwaydroid/waydroid · Python

    Waydroid runs a full Android system in a container on top of a regular GNU/Linux system, letting you use Android apps alongside your Linux desktop.

  44. 47

    docker.kitematic

    12.1Kdocker-archive-public/docker.kitematic · JavaScript

    Kitematic is a desktop GUI application for visually managing Docker containers on Mac, Linux and Windows.

  45. 48

    wslg

    12Kmicrosoft/wslg · C++

    WSLg (Windows Subsystem for Linux GUI) adds support to WSL for running Linux GUI applications (X11 and Wayland) directly on the Windows desktop, with windows appearing in the taskbar, Start Menu, and alt-tab like native apps.

  46. 49

    WSL2-Linux-Kernel

    10.6Kmicrosoft/WSL2-Linux-Kernel · C

    This is the official source repository for the Linux kernel that powers WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 2), including the kernel source code and configuration files used by Microsoft.

  47. 50

    DroidDeck

    10.4KDroid-Deck/DroidDeck · Kotlin

    DroidDeck brings the SteamOS Big Picture experience to Android, letting you run Valve's Steam client and Windows games via Valve's ARM64 Proton on an Adreno-powered Android handheld.

  48. 51

    winapps

    10.3KFmstrat/winapps · Shell

    WinApps lets you run Windows applications like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud inside Linux (Ubuntu/Fedora) with GNOME or KDE, so they appear and behave like native apps, including right-click integration in the Nautilus file manager.

  49. 52

    vphone-aio

    7.7K34306/vphone-aio · Shell

    vphone-aio is a single shell script that downloads, merges, and launches a jailbroken iOS 26.1 virtual phone (vphone) on your Mac, with the jailbreak bootstrap already installed.

  50. 53

    tart

    7.6Kopenai/tart · Swift

    Tart lets you create and run macOS and Linux virtual machines directly on Apple Silicon Macs, built specifically for use in CI pipelines and other automated workflows.

  51. 54

    smolvm

    6.8Ksmol-machines/smolvm · Rust

    smolvm is a CLI tool for running embeddable, portable, branchable virtual machines so you can safely run AI agents and untrusted code locally, with sub-second cold start on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

  52. 55

    arcbox

    4.2Karcboxlabs/arcbox · Rust

    ArcBox is a fast, open-source container and VM runtime for macOS, built from scratch in Rust, that acts as a drop-in Docker replacement while also offering disposable sandboxes for AI agents, native Kubernetes, and full Linux and macOS VMs.

  53. 56

    DroidDesk

    4.2Korailnoor/DroidDesk · Kotlin

    DroidDesk turns an Android phone into a full Linux desktop using Termux, Termux:X11, TUR, and Proot, letting you run apps like VS Code, Firefox, LibreOffice, Blender, and even Metasploit directly on your phone.

  54. 57

    wslmanager

    4Kbostrot/wslmanager · Dart

    WSL Manager is a free, open source GUI for the Windows Subsystem for Linux: install, back up, move and configure distros without memorising wsl.exe flags. On macOS the same app also manages native Linux and macOS VMs.

  55. 58

    wsl-dashboard

    4Kowu/wsl-dashboard · Rust

    WSL Dashboard is a GUI manager for WSL built in Rust with a Slint UI, letting you install, start, stop, unregister, and configure your WSL distros from one place with a lightweight, low-memory footprint.

  56. 59

    Podroid

    3.6KExTV/Podroid · Kotlin

    Podroid is a rootless Android app that boots a real Alpine Linux virtual machine on your phone, letting you run Linux containers (Podman, Docker, LXC) and even full GUI desktop apps.

  57. 60

    try-omarchy

    2.7Komacom/try-omarchy · Swift

    Try Omarchy lets you run the Omarchy Arch Linux desktop as a native, hardware-accelerated macOS app on Apple Silicon, with no manual VM setup required.

  58. 61

    Husk

    2.2KLeviidev/Husk · Java

    Husk is an Android app launcher for iPhone: drop in an APK, tap it, and the Android app opens full-screen, running either natively or through emulation.

  59. 62

    zsvirt

    2KZSvirt/zsvirt · Java

    ZSvirt is an open-source IaaS virtualization engine that brings ZStack's enterprise ZSphere technology to the community, letting you run and manage virtual machines on KVM-based hosts without vendor lock-in.

  60. 63

    darwin-vm

    1.2Kjprx/darwin-vm · Shell

    darwin-vm boots iOS or macOS (Darwin) inside QEMU straight to a root shell, so you can debug the kernel, edit the filesystem, and run your own custom programs. It supports emulating iPhone 12-17 (A14-A19) and M1-M5 Macs.

  61. 64

    motor-os

    1.1Kmoturus/motor-os · Rust

    Motor OS is a simple, fast, and secure operating system built for the cloud. It targets virtualized workloads — web serving, serverless computing, and edge caching — and is written entirely in Rust, kernel to shell.

  62. 65

    coop

    787trailofbits/coop · Rust

    coop is a Rust CLI that spins up disposable, isolated virtual machines so Claude Code and Codex can run with full tool access (Docker, git, compilers, package managers) without putting your host machine at risk.

  63. 66

    try-omarchy-windows

    636omacom/try-omarchy-windows · Go

    Try Omarchy for Windows runs the full Omarchy Linux desktop (Arch-based, Hyprland) inside a window on Windows 10 or 11, using QEMU on Windows' built-in hypervisor with GPU-accelerated rendering.

  64. 67

    steamac

    591fxgl/steamac · Swift

    steamac runs Valve's actual ARM64 SteamOS (the Steam Frame image) inside a lightweight VM on Apple Silicon Macs, with GPU acceleration handled through Venus and Vulkan-on-Metal via MoltenVK.

  65. 68

    agentbox

    538madarco/agentbox · TypeScript

    AgentBox is a CLI that runs multiple coding agents in parallel, each in its own sandboxed VM, with a single command — on your PC, a self-hosted server, or in the cloud.

  66. 69

    vfkit

    431crc-org/vfkit · Go

    vfkit is a command-line tool that starts virtual machines on macOS using Apple's built-in Virtualization framework, and it also ships a Go package to generate vfkit command lines programmatically.

  67. 70

    virtio-nvgpu

    431nestrilabs/virtio-nvgpu · Rust

    A virtio device that shares one NVIDIA GPU across several KVM virtual machines at near-bare-metal speed, by forwarding kernel-driver ioctls instead of translating graphics APIs. The target use case is headless streaming: the guest renders and encodes on the GPU, and only compressed video leaves.

  68. 71

    nvx

    408microsoft/nvx · Python

    NVX is an ultra-light micro-VM sandbox for running untrusted workloads with hardware-enforced isolation, built on OpenVMM and running Linux as the guest OS.

  69. 72

    vphone-web

    37434306/vphone-web · HTML

    It is a self-hosted web platform for running multiple virtual iPhones in the browser at once, with user accounts, RBAC, live screen streaming, touch input, IPA install, a root shell and a file browser, built on top of the vphone-cli engine using Apple's Virtualization.framework.

  70. 73

    allox-os

    313AlloxOrg/allox-os · Python

    A dedicated runtime for AI agents: it runs multiple agents and sessions inside a Kata-isolated VM and adds workspace isolation, checkpointing, rollback and observability on top of it.

  71. 74

    ftl

    303nuta/ftl · Rust

    FTL is a new operating system written in Rust that aims to be an alternative to Linux, BSD, and Illumos specifically for cloud environments.

  72. 75

    ra2

    283ra2-games/ra2 · TypeScript

    A fan-made web port that runs the original Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge x86 executables directly in the browser, using the v86 emulator with custom firmware and a Win32/DirectX compatibility layer instead of a real Windows install.

  73. 76

    ServerBox

    264madeye/ServerBox · Kotlin

    ServerBox is an Android app that turns an old phone into a Linux server without rooting it, running Alpine, Arch, Debian, Kali or Ubuntu with an always-on SSH server.

  74. 77

    quicksand

    246microsoft/quicksand · Python

    Quicksand is an async Python API for launching, controlling, and snapshotting QEMU virtual machines, built specifically for sandboxing AI agents.

  75. 78

    brig

    232brig-sh/brig · Go

    Brig is a Go CLI (brig) with a session daemon (brigd) that runs coding agents inside a microVM sandbox on your own machine, so an unattended agent can only damage the one project you hand it.

  76. 79

    frank-386

    210rh1tech/frank-386 · C

    FRANK 386 is an i386 PC emulator that runs as firmware on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (RP2350), turning the board into a tiny retro PC with VGA/HDMI video, SD-card storage, keyboard and mouse input, and sound. It is a port of Chunhui He's Tiny386.

  77. 80

    macPad

    180DCMMC/macPad · Objective-C

    macPad lets you run full macOS GUI applications on a jailbroken iPad or iPhone, turning the touchscreen into a trackpad and multitouch input for macOS windows.

  78. 81

    karotte

    145preferencemodel/karotte · Python

    Karotte is an open-source framework from Preference Model for building robust reinforcement learning (RL) environments used to train aligned AI.

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