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microsandbox vs smolvm: catalog facts
microsandbox	smolvm
Free The local runtime is free and open source under Apache-2.0; managed cloud access is by…	Free The smolvm runtime is free and open source; the separate smol cloud service includes $10…
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Self-hosted, Command line
Separate kernel per sandbox for stronger isolation than containers No daemon, root or account needed locally	Hardware isolation for each workload in a lightweight microVM Runs on macOS, Linux and Windows
Young project Cloud offering is still in private beta	Aimed at developers rather than desktop virtualization users Runs Linux guests only
Downloadable app	Downloadable app, Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: Apache-2.0
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 October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

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