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LXD vs SmartOS: catalog facts
LXD	SmartOS
Free Free and open source, maintained by Canonical.	Free The SmartOS ISO is free and open source; Triton offers paid private and hosted cloud…
Linux, Web, Self-hosted, Command line	Self-hosted
Runs system containers and KVM virtual machines side by side Low overhead for full Linux environments in containers	Runs zones and KVM or bhyve VMs on the same host ZFS and DTrace built in
Linux hosts only Canonical-led project, most at home on Ubuntu	Illumos base is less familiar than Linux Cloud management features require Triton on top
Self-hosted	Operating system
Open source	Open source
License: AGPL-3.0	License not stated
No account needed	No account needed
Not stated if it works offline	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.