We Rebuilt the Linux MicroVM Stack on Apple Silicon

(encore.dev)

40 points | by signa11 1 hour ago

4 comments

  • bit_rot73 14 minutes ago
    Four years on a shared remote machine before building the local backend is a good lesson in when to invest in dev tooling versus living with the workaround.
  • huerne 48 minutes ago
    VZ.framework is very limited, Hypervisor.framework is the better analogue to KVM
    • jdub 17 minutes ago
      Virtualization.framework isn't particularly limited, for what it is... given they're using Firecracker on Linux, it makes sense to use a similarly high level API on macOS.

      (One could add a Hypervisor.framework backend to Firecracker, though I'd be surprised if AWS accepted it.)

  • kombine 33 minutes ago
    > most engineers at Encore develop on a Mac

    They are solving the wrong problem.

    • rob_c 4 minutes ago
      No, they're realists.

      Plus show me an off the shelf solution to MDM that exists in the Linux space? (Not too mention an easy to buy consumer devices which supports suspend/resume correctly in 2026, not even Windows can do that any more)

      Apple is crap and evil about many things, but at least here they know their paying audience...

  • github_vibe 32 minutes ago
    I just encountered the `com.apple.private.virtualization` entitlement limitation just last night, wanting to use VZVirtualMachine private AccessorEndpoint api. There's lot of useful stuff hidden in Apple's Private API space.

    Great write up! I enjoy seeing others working in the same problem space.