Incus
containercontainer-engineopen sourceA system-container and VM manager (LXC/LXD lineage) with one CLI for both, the low-friction Linux isolation choice.
Incus manages LXC-based system containers and, with the same CLI, full virtual machines. As a system-container manager it shares the host kernel like any container. Its appeal is the seamless upgrade path: incus launch runs a container, incus launch --vm runs a hardware-isolated VM with no new tooling, which is why it is the low-friction recommendation on Linux when you may want to move from a container to a real boundary.
Strengths
- One CLI for both system containers and full VMs, easy upgrade path
- Free, open source, community-governed (LinuxContainers)
- Snapshots and a mature system-container model
Limitations
- As a container, shares the host kernel (use --vm for a hardware boundary)
- Linux only
- System containers are heavier than single-app OCI containers
Files & editor
desktop-mountSystem containers share host files via mounts, so your host editor works directly. (With --vm you are in the VM story: remote editing.)
How you get your project into the environment and edit it. Shared-kernel routes bind-mount host files for your desktop editor; own-kernel routes keep files in the guest, so a desktop editor attaches over remote, or you edit inside. Mounts and remote editing.