Firecracker

Detailed Introduction

Firecracker is an open-source microVM platform originally developed by Amazon for serverless and multi-tenant scenarios. It provides lightweight virtualization that balances fast startup and low memory overhead with strong isolation, making it suitable for short-lived, high-density workloads.

Main Features

• Minimal device model and reduced userspace dependencies to shrink attack surface and improve performance.
• Fast startup (millisecond-scale) and low memory footprint for high-concurrency, short-duration tasks.
• Hardware virtualization via KVM, combined with Linux primitives like seccomp and namespaces for enhanced isolation.
• Support for snapshot/restore, read-only images, and a dedicated jailer process to minimize privileged code paths.

Use Cases

Applicable to serverless platforms, FaaS backends, container isolation hardening, multi-tenant sandboxes, and edge computing. Firecracker is a mature choice when you need to run isolated workloads densely and securely on shared hosts.

Technical Features

Implemented in Rust and released under Apache-2.0 license, Firecracker focuses on minimizing attack surface and auditability. It achieves a balance of performance and security through a compact device model, deep integration with Linux kernel features (KVM, cgroups, seccomp), and dedicated lifecycle management components.