Side by side

Cloud Hypervisor vs crosvm

Both stand on hypervisor software. Which one you can start free with, which one lets you read the code, and what each costs once you pay.

Cloud Hypervisor

Free plan APILinuxSelf-hosted

Cloud Hypervisor provides VM lifecycle controls, device options, snapshots, and migration for Linux hosts. Check host kernel and architecture requirements against the deployment environment.

Visit Cloud Hypervisor

crosvm provides a broad set of guest devices and host hypervisor options, with sandboxing built into its design. Linux users need a sufficiently recent KVM-capable kernel, and some documented features remain experimental.

Visit crosvm

The facts

	Cloud Hypervisor	crosvm
Free plan	Yes	Yes
Open source	Not published	Yes
Runs on	API, Linux, Self-hosted	Android, API, Linux, Self-hosted, Windows
Lowest paid plan	Free or on request	Free or on request
Plans published	1	1
Maker	Not published	Not published
Website	cloudhypervisor.org	chromium.googlesource.com
On hypervisor software	#5 of 26	#1 of 26

Cloud Hypervisor: what it does well

Supports modern Linux and Windows guests.
Offers REST API and command-line VM control.
Supports snapshots, nested virtualization, and live migration.
Migration data can be encrypted using mutual TLS.
Free and open source.

What to know first

Requires Linux hosts with kernel 4.11 or later.
Kernel 5.6 is recommended for adequate performance.
Host support is limited to x86-64 and AArch64.

crosvm: what it does well

Each virtual device has a Minijail sandbox by default.
Supports x86_64, aarch64, and riscv64.
Includes a broad set of virtio devices.
crosvm_control provides programmatic interaction.

What to know first

Linux hosts need kernel 4.14 or newer with KVM.
Some devices have additional host requirements.
Snapshotting and several devices are experimental.

Alternatives to Cloud Hypervisor Alternatives to crosvm The whole list