bhyve

Bhyve is a virtualization hypervisor built into FreeBSD. It provides a lightweight, open-source solution for running x86-64 guest operating systems on hardware that supports Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Bhyve operates as a userland controller that relies on the vmm kernel module to implement virtualization facilities and to manage guest state.

A virtual machine is created and controlled with the bhyve command-line tool. The guest hardware is emulated with a minimal set of devices, including a PCI host bridge, VirtIO-based disks and network interfaces, a VGA display, and a serial console. OVMF-based UEFI firmware can be used to boot modern guests. PCI device passthrough is possible when the host hardware and system configuration support an IOMMU.

Supported guest operating systems include FreeBSD, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Windows. Windows requires VirtIO drivers to achieve good performance and functionality. Because bhyve uses VirtIO, drivers are typically provided in the guest OS installer or add-ons.

Management and tooling: vm-bhyve is a popular FreeBSD utility for managing bhyve VMs with configuration files and scripts. The FreeBSD ports and packages make it straightforward to install; the project is distributed under a BSD license.

Positioning: Bhyve emphasizes simplicity and performance within FreeBSD environments. It offers a minimal feature set compared with more mature platforms such as QEMU/KVM or VMware and has fewer GUI-based management options, but it integrates tightly with the FreeBSD ecosystem and is suitable for servers, development environments, and lightweight virtualization tasks.