Alternatives to Vagrant
Builds reproducible development virtual machines from a single file. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Vagrant
Builds reproducible development virtual machines from a single file.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Vagrant.
Lima
Launches Linux virtual machines from the command line on macOS, Linux and Windows, with file sharing and port forwarding set up automatically.
Lima is Apache-licensed open source and sets up file sharing and port forwarding automatically, but it runs Linux guests only and has its own VM backend rather than providers.
Multipass
Canonical's tool for launching a fresh Ubuntu virtual machine with one command, on Windows, macOS or Linux.
Multipass is GPL open source and launches Ubuntu machines with cloud-init support using each platform's native hypervisor, but it focuses on Ubuntu only.
Quickemu
Downloads an operating system and builds a properly configured QEMU virtual machine from one short config file.
Quickemu is MIT-licensed and builds QEMU machines from a short config file for many operating systems, but it lacks Vagrant's provider choice and Windows host support.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
VirtualBox
The free desktop hypervisor most people start with: run Windows, Linux or BSD in a window on the machine you already have.
VMware Workstation Pro
Type-2 hypervisor for running virtual machines on Windows and Linux desktops.
Hyper-V
Microsoft's type-1 hypervisor built into Windows and Windows Server for running Windows and Linux virtual machines.
KVM
The Linux kernel's built-in hypervisor for hardware-accelerated virtual machines.
QEMU
The machine emulator and virtualiser that most of the Linux virtualisation stack is built on.
Rancher Desktop
Runs Kubernetes and containers locally on Windows, macOS and Linux, as an open-source alternative to Docker Desktop.
