Directory / Firecracker
Firecracker
Verified
AWS’s microVM monitor that sandbox vendors wrap.
Firecracker is an open-source virtualization technology that launches microVMs with a small attack surface. AWS Lambda and Fargate use it. E2B and others wrap it. Listing it keeps “we use Firecracker” honest: it is a hypervisor, not a product factory.
- Model independence
- Multi-model
- Deployment
- Self-hosted
- Open source
- Yes
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Pricing model
- Free
- Added / updated
- 19 Aug 2026 / 19 Aug 2026
firecracker-microvm.github.io · Docs · Source
Editorial take
If your vendor’s only isolation sentence is “Firecracker,” this is the primary source. You still need networking, images, an API, and a policy. Do not file your company as open-source because you exec into a Firecracker VM.
Strengths
- Apache-2.0 microVMs with a serious production pedigree at AWS.
- The actual isolation primitive many agent sandboxes advertise.
- You can run it yourself if you are a platform team.
Limitations
- Not an agent API. You will write a control plane.
- Linux/KVM operational requirements.
- No issue-to-PR story. Obviously.