Firecracker vs IPFW
Firecracker
firecracker-microvm.github.ioIPFW
man.freebsd.orgSide by side
| Figure | Firecracker | IPFW |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | 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) | 7.8 (#8) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Purpose | Firecracker is open source virtualization technology for running secure, multi-tenant container and function workloads in lightweight microVMs. | ipfw is the user interface for controlling the FreeBSD firewall, dummynet traffic shaper and packet scheduler, and in-kernel NAT services. |
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.