Open-source alternatives to IncludeOS

Foreman is a lifecycle infrastructure management platform used for automating the provisioning, configuration, and monitoring of physical, virtual, and cloud servers. It serves as a central hub for managing the entire lifespan of a server, from initial deployment and operating system upgrades to decommissioning and auditing. The platform functions as a hybrid cloud manager and bare-metal provisioning tool, providing a unified interface to control virtual machine lifecycles across diverse hypervisors and public cloud providers. It automates hardware discovery and operating system deployment us

Grav is a flat-file content management system that eliminates the need for a traditional database by storing site content and configuration in human-readable Markdown and YAML files. Built as a modular PHP web framework, it uses a hierarchical page routing system where the physical directory structure directly determines the site's URL paths. The platform is distinguished by its event-driven plugin architecture and a command-line interface that prioritizes system administration, deployment, and maintenance tasks. It utilizes a blueprint-driven system to generate administrative forms from stru

Mongoose is an embedded networking library providing TCP/IP stacks, web server hosting, and IoT device connectivity. It enables microcontrollers and desktop systems to implement network protocols including HTTP, WebSocket, and MQTT. The project provides a bare-metal TCP/IP stack for environments without a native operating system and includes built-in TLS and ECC encryption to secure network traffic. It features a binary-embedded file system to serve web content directly from the executable and supports over-the-air firmware updates for managing device fleets. Additional capabilities cover as

libgit2 is a portable, cross-platform C library that provides a programmatic interface for integrating Git version control directly into applications. It serves as a linkable implementation of Git internals, allowing developers to manage repositories and manipulate version control data without requiring a system installation of the Git command line tool. The library functions as an embedded API and object database manager capable of reading and writing commits, trees, blobs, and tags. It includes a network transport client to handle the transfer of repository data over protocols such as SSH a

smoltcp is a standalone TCP/IP network stack written in Rust, designed specifically for bare-metal and embedded systems. It provides a memory-safe implementation of the internet protocol suite that operates without requiring dynamic heap allocation. The project is distinguished by its heap-less memory management, using fixed-size buffers and manually allocated memory to ensure deterministic performance. It employs zero-copy packet processing and an interface-based hardware abstraction to decouple the network stack from physical hardware. The stack covers a broad range of networking capabilit

This project is a cross-platform C library designed for implementing MQTT messaging in applications. It serves as an asynchronous networking toolkit that enables resource-constrained systems and distributed components to exchange telemetry data and control signals with messaging brokers. The library distinguishes itself through a state-machine-based protocol handler that manages connection lifecycles and persistent session states, ensuring reliable message delivery even during intermittent network connectivity. It utilizes a background thread to manage network operations, allowing application

Packer is a machine image build tool and multi-platform image orchestrator. It functions as an infrastructure as code image builder that produces identical machine images across multiple platforms from a single source configuration to ensure environment consistency. The tool enables the creation of a golden image pipeline by generating compatible system images for different cloud providers and on-premises hypervisors. It includes an image lifecycle registry to store metadata for tracking the versioning and status of generated images. The system manages the automation of machine image creatio

tiny-AES-c is a lightweight C language cryptography library that provides a symmetric cipher implementation of the Advanced Encryption Standard. It functions as a portable set of functions for encrypting and decrypting data using a shared secret key. The library is designed for embedded system security, enabling cryptographic operations on hardware with limited memory and processing power. It provides these capabilities without relying on large external dependencies. The implementation utilizes a standard C library approach, employing table-based substitution and in-place buffer mutation to

Veewee is a framework for automating the generation and packaging of custom virtual machine images across multiple hypervisors. It serves as a virtual machine image builder, OS installation automator, and image converter capable of producing configured images for KVM, Vagrant, and VMware. The tool differentiates itself by using remote desktop keystroke injection to simulate keyboard inputs directly into the guest machine buffer, automating installations that typically require manual interaction. It further enables the creation of custom base boxes and portable image formats through a multi-pr

This project serves as a documentation hub and specification repository for official Docker images. It functions as a metadata-driven documentation generator that transforms structured content files into markdown files and readmes for public distribution. The repository provides technical guides and configuration standards for deploying containerized software across multiple CPU architectures. It includes detailed manuals for configuring environment variables, volume mounts, and network settings to ensure consistent image deployments. The documentation covers a broad range of containerized e

sqlite-vec is a C-based vector library and SQLite extension that adds virtual tables for storing and querying high-dimensional embeddings. It functions as a database plugin for performing nearest neighbor searches using distance metrics such as L2, cosine, and Hamming distance. The project provides a portable embedding store that supports deployment across Android, iOS, desktop environments, and web browsers via WebAssembly. It distinguishes itself by converting numerical arrays into compact binary formats and utilizing quantization to reduce the memory footprint and storage size of vector in

smoltcp is a TCP/IP stack and network protocol implementation designed for resource-constrained environments and bare-metal hardware. It provides a set of socket interfaces for managing reliable TCP stream connections and connectionless UDP datagrams without relying on a standard library. The project utilizes a fixed memory layout and static memory allocation to manage network state and process packets without a dynamic memory allocator. It includes specialized capabilities for low-power wireless networks, such as header compression and fragmentation for 6LoWPAN. The stack covers the data li

Nhost is an open-source backend as a service that provides a managed PostgreSQL database, authentication, and file storage accessible through a unified GraphQL API. It functions as a backend infrastructure orchestrator, enabling the deployment and management of full-stack environments using containerization and command-line automation. The platform distinguishes itself by automating the transformation of relational database tables into a secure GraphQL API and providing an integrated identity provider that supports passwords, magic links, and OAuth. It also includes a serverless function runt

This project consists of technical instructional guides and a structured computer science curriculum designed to teach the construction of a full computing stack from transistors up to a web browser. It provides a 12-week educational course that covers the fundamental domains of computer architecture and digital logic design. The curriculum is distinguished by its first-principles approach, guiding the learner through the engineering of CPUs, FPGAs, and PCBs using digital logic and hardware description languages. It includes specific syllabi for building a hardware design, a TCP/IP network st

f-stack is a kernel-bypass framework and user-space TCP/IP stack designed to increase packet processing speeds and overall throughput. It utilizes DPDK to route network traffic directly to user space and integrates a transplanted FreeBSD network stack to handle transport and network layer protocols outside of the host operating system. The project provides a socket API compatibility layer that allows standard network applications to run on a high-performance backend without requiring code changes. It also features a coroutine-based network API and micro-threading interface to manage asynchron

Embassy is an asynchronous framework for microcontrollers that provides a runtime for cooperative multitasking. It enables the execution of multiple concurrent tasks to maximize energy efficiency and CPU usage, utilizing an async executor that puts the processor to sleep when idle. The framework includes a comprehensive set of embedded components, featuring a hardware abstraction layer for peripherals like GPIO, SPI, I2C, and UART, alongside a TCP/IP network stack and a USB device stack. It also provides a Bluetooth Low Energy host stack for wireless communication and a bootloader framework t

Conan is a package manager and binary repository for C and C++ that resolves and installs external libraries to ensure consistent build environments across different platforms. It functions as a native dependency resolver and a cross-platform build tool designed to facilitate reproducible native builds. The project provides capabilities for native package hosting, allowing users to implement a server to store and distribute pre-compiled libraries and their required dependencies. It also supports standalone binary bundling to create executable files that include all necessary runtime dependenc

Fission is a function-as-a-service platform and serverless framework for Kubernetes. It manages the lifecycle and execution of code snippets as serverless functions, providing an orchestrator that triggers these functions based on HTTP requests, message queues, or scheduled events. The platform features a cold-start optimized runtime that utilizes warm container pools and dynamic loaders to achieve millisecond execution. It includes a native autoscaler to adjust the number of function instances based on real-time traffic demand and supports canary release testing to split incoming traffic bet

Floci is a local emulator for AWS services and cloud infrastructure designed for developing and testing applications without a live internet connection. It serves as a containerized cloud emulator and a serverless runtime emulator, allowing users to run high-fidelity replicas of cloud databases, queues, and compute services on a local machine. The project distinguishes itself by using real container images instead of simple mocks to ensure behavioral accuracy. It functions as a local API gateway simulator with proxy-based routing for REST and WebSocket APIs, and provides a serverless environm

Miniflare is a local simulator and emulator for Cloudflare Workers. It provides a serverless runtime environment on a local machine, allowing for the development and testing of functions and edge APIs without deploying to a production cloud environment. The project implements a local simulation of edge storage primitives, including key-value stores, object storage, and durable objects. It further enables a local integration test bed where serverless functions are executed within isolated sandboxes. The toolset covers a broad development surface, including hot-reloading via file-system monito

Imageflow is a high-performance image manipulation library and composition engine available as a C-compatible library, a command-line image processor, and a dynamic image processing server. It provides the means to decode, encode, and apply complex visual transformations to images through programmatic interfaces, JSON job files, or on-the-fly URL query strings. The system distinguishes itself through a graph-based processing pipeline that allows for single-pass multi-format encoding, generating multiple image sizes and formats from a single decode to reduce overhead. It further features a res

UltraJSON is a high-performance JSON library and parser written in C with bindings for Python. It provides a fast alternative to standard JSON processing for decoding JSON strings into native data structures and encoding data structures back into JSON strings. The library utilizes a C-based engine to reduce processing latency and increase throughput for JSON generation and parsing. It is designed to accelerate data pipelines and optimize the handling of JSON payloads.

klib is a comprehensive C standard library extension and data structure toolkit. It provides a set of fundamental tools for memory management, data organization, and general-purpose utility functions for standalone C applications. The project features specialized capabilities for bioinformatics sequence analysis, including the parsing of FASTA, FASTQ, and Newick formats and the implementation of Smith-Waterman sequence alignment and Hidden Markov Models. It also includes a mathematical computation library for numerical routines and expression evaluation, as well as a lightweight HTTP and FTP

crun is a low-level container runtime that implements the Open Container Initiative specification for managing the lifecycle of isolated processes. It provides the core mechanisms for container creation, execution, and deletion, ensuring compatibility across platforms through standardized lifecycle management. The project distinguishes itself by offering a shared C library that allows container runtime operations to be embedded directly into other compiled applications. It further extends execution capabilities through specialized handlers that enable the deployment of containers within isola

wslg is an integration layer and display server system designed to run Linux graphical applications on Windows. It provides a bridge between Linux window management, audio routing, and system clipboards and the Windows host, utilizing a Wayland and X11 display server to support visual software. The system utilizes a virtual GPU architecture to provide hardware-accelerated rendering for graphics-intensive applications. It implements a Remote Desktop Protocol gateway to stream graphical frames and uses a specialized sound server interface to route audio and microphone data between the Linux gue

Carp is a statically typed Lisp compiler that compiles Lisp-like syntax directly to C source code, enabling seamless integration with existing C libraries and low-level system programming. It manages memory deterministically at compile time using ownership tracking and linear types, eliminating garbage collection pauses and runtime overhead while ensuring type safety through an inferred static type system. The language distinguishes itself through compile-time macro expansion and metaprogramming capabilities, allowing code generation and transformation before final binary output. It enforces

This project is an embedded C++ development kit and hardware abstraction layer that enables the Arduino programming environment to target ESP8266 WiFi microcontrollers. It provides a comprehensive framework for compiling and flashing code to microcontroller memory via serial or wireless interfaces. The system includes a specialized WiFi microcontroller framework for managing TCP/IP stacks and internet connectivity. It features a dedicated over-the-air firmware update system that allows software updates to be delivered to remote hardware without a physical cable connection. The kit covers emb