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SmartOS vs LXD: catalog facts
SmartOS	LXD
Free The SmartOS ISO is free and open source; Triton offers paid private and hosted cloud…	Free Free and open source, maintained by Canonical.
Self-hosted	Linux, Web, Self-hosted, Command line
Runs zones and KVM or bhyve VMs on the same host ZFS and DTrace built in	Runs system containers and KVM virtual machines side by side Low overhead for full Linux environments in containers
Illumos base is less familiar than Linux Cloud management features require Triton on top	Linux hosts only Canonical-led project, most at home on Ubuntu
Operating system	Self-hosted
Open source	Open source
License not stated	License: AGPL-3.0
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 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.