Firecracker vs IBM z/VM
Firecracker
firecracker-microvm.github.io
IBM z/VM
ibm.comSide by side
| Figure | Firecracker | IBM z/VM |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Server Virtualization Software | 8.4 (#5) | 7.5 (#11) |
| Spec score · Hypervisor Software | 8.4 (#8) | 7.6 (#17) |
| Spec score · Virtual machine software | 7.8 (#15) | 7.4 (#18) |
| Free plan | Yes | No |
| Host platforms | Linux | IBM Z and LinuxONE |
| Integrations | The site lists integrations including containerd, Kata Containers, E2B, Fly.io, Koyeb, Northflank, OpenNebula, Qovery, and microvm.nix. | IBM lists Red Hat OpenShift as a supported workload and offers add-ons for managing z/VM and Linux systems. |
| Purpose | Firecracker is open source virtualization technology for running secure, multi-tenant container and function workloads in lightweight microVMs. | IBM z/VM is an operating system and hypervisor designed to run guest servers including Linux, z/OS, and z/TPF virtual machines on IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE. |
Plans
In their own words
Firecracker
Firecracker is open-source virtualization software for running container and function workloads in lightweight microVMs. It uses Linux KVM hardware virtualization to isolate each workload and exposes only five emulated devices, a design intended to reduce attack surface. MicroVMs start in under 125 ms, add under 5 MiB of memory overhead each, and a host can create up to 150 per second while packing thousands onto one server. A RESTful API configures and starts the VMs, while rate limiters govern network and storage bandwidth and operations. The companion jailer adds Linux user-space security barriers. Firecracker supports Linux hosts and guests with kernel versions 4.14 and above, plus OSv guests, on production 64-bit Intel, AMD, and Arm CPUs with hardware virtualization. VM snapshots are supported, but GPU acceleration is not. It is free under Apache 2.0, with integrations including containerd, Kata Containers, and Fly.io.