Unikraft

Unikraft is an open-source library operating system (unikernel) builder. Its primary goal is to enable developers to create specialized, minimal, and highly optimized operating system images for specific applications. Unlike traditional monolithic operating systems that provide a wide range of functionalities, Unikraft focuses on providing only the necessary components for a given application to run. This results in smaller, more secure, and faster-booting systems.

The Unikraft ecosystem comprises a rich set of libraries for common operating system functionalities, such as networking, storage, and file systems. Developers select the required libraries and Unikraft's build system compiles them along with the application code into a single, standalone executable. This executable is often referred to as a unikernel. These unikernels can then be deployed on various platforms, including bare metal, virtual machines, and cloud environments.

A key advantage of Unikraft is its flexibility and customization. Developers have fine-grained control over the included components, allowing them to tailor the unikernel to the precise needs of their application. This leads to significant reductions in attack surface and improved performance due to the elimination of unused code and system overhead. Unikraft is designed to be highly portable, supporting multiple hypervisors and hardware architectures. It is often used in contexts where efficiency, security, and performance are paramount, such as in cloud-native applications, IoT devices, and network function virtualization.