Your App. Your Kernel. Zero Overhead.

Popcorn boots your immutable OCI container as a standalone OS — in under 1 second — across cloud and bare metal.

🚀 Get Started 🔍 GitHub + CI Pipelines

Why Popcorn Exists

Traditional OS containers run atop mutable hosts, slow to boot and vulnerable to noisy neighbors and attack surfaces. Popcorn changes that: it turns your OCI app into the OS, fusing a minimal kernel with your container into a single bootable binary.

Popcorn + SwiftBoot: What's Inside

Immutable Kernel Lifecycle

Sub-Second Boot Performance

CloudPlatformBoot TimeBoot Type
AWSNitro~450msEFI
AzureHyper-V Gen2~800msEFI
GCPKVM~500msEFI
QEMULocal~300msBIOS

Seed Images: Prebuilt Apps That Pop

AppDescriptionBoot TimeCloud Ready
NginxStatic site in under 500ms~400ms
PostgreSQLEphemeral dev database~450ms
RedisIn-memory microservice~420ms
Alpine + BashDebug shell image~350ms

Supply Chain & Security Comparison

FeaturePopcornChainguardBottlerocketVanilla OCI
Bootable image (no host OS)
Millisecond cloud boot
Verified kernel lifecycle CI
Immutable + reproducible
Zero-runtime attack surface
Cloud-native GitHub pipeline

Get Started in CI

# Build and publish for AWS Nitro
./scripts/build/kernels.sh aws-nitro
./scripts/publish/aws/to-aws.sh my-popcorn-image

Supports --reference object stores, multi-arch builds, and isolated CI runners with pinned kernel tags.

📄 Full Why Popcorn™ Markdown

# 🍿 Why Use Popcorn™ **Popcorn™ is the fastest, most efficient way to deploy cloud-native applications using microVMs.** When milliseconds matter, Popcorn™ delivers. --- ## 🚀 Instant Boot = Instant Scale Popcorn™ fuses your application and kernel into a single bootable image. That means your microVMs go from *cold storage* to *running workload* in **under a second** — no OS boot, no container daemon, no spin-up delay. > Your app *pops* the moment it's needed. Perfect for autoscaling, CI/CD, and bursty workloads. --- ## 🧈 Buttery Smooth Performance Unlike containers, Popcorn™ runs on **bare metal microVMs** with **hardware-level isolation** — without sacrificing speed. It’s designed for **zero-jitter cold starts**, **low-latency IO**, and **predictable runtime behavior** across every launch. > The result? Fewer surprises. Happier SREs. --- ## 📦 One Image, All You Need Popcorn™ packages: - Your **application** - A **minimal kernel** - An **OCI-compliant root filesystem** ...into a single immutable image. No more managing base OS versions or dependencies across environments. > Build it once, run it anywhere microVMs run — even air-gapped. --- ## 🔒 Secure by Construction Popcorn™ minimizes your attack surface: - No systemd - No SSH - No package manager - No users - No legacy drivers - No blobs - No indigestion - No daemons waving backdoor ports - No gremlins hiding behind systemd Just your app, in a tamper-resistant, read-only image — with full support for measured boot and signed workloads. > Fewer moving parts. Fewer exploits. --- ## 🧮 Smaller. Faster. Cheaper. Popcorn™ images are tiny — often **<10MB**, boot in **<1 second**, and use **~4x less memory** than traditional VMs. That translates directly to **lower cloud costs**, higher density, and more responsive workloads. > Fit more apps per node. Pay less per workload. --- ## 🟡 Popcorn™ is what microVMs were meant to be. If your team is ready for: - Serverless speed - VM-grade security - Container-like simplicity ...then you're ready to pop.

🎯 Stakeholders Who Crave Popcorn™

# 🎯 Stakeholders Who Crave Popcorn™ Popcorn™ delivers boot-speed infrastructure that satisfies across the stack — from hands-on engineers to high-stakes boardrooms. --- ## 👩‍💻 Developers Popcorn™ clears the clutter: no base image stew, no bloated init, no surprise daemons. Just code that boots like an appliance — fast, clean, and repeatable. CI/CD pipelines simplify. Cold starts evaporate. And devs ship with joy. > Your code *is* the system. And it pops. --- ## 🧭 Product Managers Popcorn™ makes environments invisible and delivery reliable. Boot times are sub-second. Environments are reproducible. Rollbacks are just image swaps. Product teams move fast, deploy fearlessly, and sleep better. > Fewer war rooms. Faster releases. --- ## 💰 CFOs Popcorn™ cuts your cloud bill. Tiny images, high density, low RAM use, and microVM isolation mean you run more with less. Immutable workloads mean fewer incidents and lower support cost. > Spend less per boot. Maximize your margins. --- ## 🛠️ Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) Popcorn™ gives you the trifecta: predictability, observability, and calm. Immutable images boot in milliseconds with no drift, no zombies, no background surprises. Just pure signal. > Fewer incidents. More uptime. No midnight gremlins. --- ## 🧑‍💼 CEOs Popcorn™ simplifies your platform story: fewer tools, fewer vendors, and a unified infrastructure that moves with your business. Security, velocity, and operational confidence — baked in. > Infrastructure becomes a strategic asset. --- ## 🪑 Board of Directors Popcorn™ reduces attack surface, eliminates drift, and enables verifiable supply chains. Immutable, signed images plus measured boot give auditors and compliance teams hard guarantees — not wishful thinking. > Reduced risk. Cleaner governance. Shareholder confidence. --- ## 🔒 CISOs / Security Teams Popcorn™ has no package managers, no SSH, no users, and no daemon ports. It’s secure by construction with zero-runtime attack surface. Boot integrity is provable. Attestation is simple. > Security isn't an afterthought — it's a kernel feature. --- ## 🧾 Compliance & Risk Officers Popcorn™ reduces the compliance blast radius. Workloads are immutable, auditable, and versioned. That means easier attestations, cleaner logs, and fewer policy exceptions. > Shorter audits. Smaller scopes. Fewer surprises. --- ## ⚙️ Platform Engineers Popcorn™ is the foundation you've always wanted: reproducible, bootable, pre-tested workloads with zero base OS maintenance. Golden images, made real. > From snowflakes to snapshots. Your platform, distilled. --- ## 💡 Innovation Leads / R&D Popcorn™ is perfect for rapid iteration — lightweight images, instant boot, easy teardown. Build, test, ship, discard. Explore freely without cloud waste. > Lab speed at prod scale. --- ## 🌐 Edge & IoT Ops Popcorn™ boots anywhere — fast. Whether it's a factory edge node or a solar-powered station in the desert, Popcorn's tiny size and deterministic boot make it ideal for constrained and remote environments. > Minimal power. Max reliability. --- ## 📦 DevOps & Release Engineering Popcorn™ eliminates flaky deployments. Every image is a sealed unit: app, kernel, rootfs — no drift, no missing deps. Build once, ship everywhere, and debug almost never. > Artifacts you can trust. --- ## 🖥️ IT / Desktop Ops Boot dev environments or internal sandboxes instantly, with no config drift and no full OS installs. Perfect for secure laptops, hackathons, and air-gapped labs. > No reimaging. Just re-popping. --- ## 🌍 Sustainability / Green IT Popcorn™ uses fewer resources: faster boots, lower memory, higher density. That translates to less energy use and better carbon efficiency at scale. > Run leaner. Boot greener.

📊 Comparison with Kata Containers

Popcorn™ and Kata both offer hardened isolation — but that’s where the similarity ends. Scroll to explore why Popcorn’s zero-runtime boot model is in a class of its own.

🚀 Performance & Boot Speed

  • Popcorn: Sub-second boot (300–800ms), no runtime or guest OS.
  • Kata: 1–5s boot with container runtime and guest VM.

🔒 Security Model

  • Popcorn: Zero-runtime: no SSH, users, or daemons.
  • Kata: Guest OS with reduced but present surface.

🧱 Architecture Philosophy

  • Popcorn: App *is* the system. Single sealed binary.
  • Kata: VM layer runs container on top of host system.

⚙️ Operational Lifecycle

  • Popcorn: Immutable, CI-pinned, no drift.
  • Kata: Requires patching and VM config management.

📦 Simplicity & Deployability

  • Popcorn: App + Kernel + RootFS in one image.
  • Kata: Separate container image, guest OS, hypervisor.

👩‍💻 Stakeholder Impact

  • Popcorn: Devs ship faster, SREs sleep, CFOs save.
  • Kata: Better than Docker, but still slower and heavier.

✨ TL;DR

Popcorn boots your workload — not a container inside a VM.
It’s smaller, faster, and simpler than Kata. No runtime. No drift. No excuses.

If your team wants serverless speed with VM-grade security and container simplicity — Popcorn pops.