canonical/multipass

What it is

Multipass is a command-line VM manager for Linux, Windows and macOS aimed at developers who want a fresh Linux environment quickly. It runs virtual machines through QEMU on Linux, HCS on Windows, and QEMU or the Apple Virtualization Framework on macOS, fetching and updating Ubuntu images itself. Because it accepts cloud-init metadata, a laptop can also stand in for a small cloud deployment during development or testing.

Quick start

Install Multipass for your platform, then launch and enter an instance.

On Linux, Multipass ships as a snap:

sudo snap install multipass

On macOS and Windows, download the installer from the releases page. The Homebrew cask exists but is community-maintained rather than officially supported; if you use it, expect a password prompt during installation. The macOS installation notes also mention that the firewall may need to be disabled to launch an instance successfully.

Once installed, a typical first session looks like this:

multipass launch lts        # start a VM with the current Ubuntu LTS
multipass list              # show existing instances
multipass shell <instance-name>

Other everyday commands include multipass info <instance-name>, multipass exec <instance-name> -- <command>, multipass stop <instance-name> and multipass delete <instance-name>. multipass images lists available images and multipass help shows command-level help. The tutorial and documentation go further.

Constraints and requirements

Official installers are the supported distribution channel; the project states that only official installers are supported. System requirements and backend support differ per platform and are covered in the driver documentation. Building from source follows separate platform guides for Linux, macOS and Windows; automatic linker selection during builds requires CMake 3.29 or newer. The code is licensed under GPL-3.0. Community integrations listed in the README, such as an MCP server, Terraform providers and VS Code extensions, are maintained outside the project.

HotRepo's take

The only snapshot on record is the 2026-11-14 C++ daily list, where Multipass held 12th place with 4 new stars and 9,387 total. That is a single-day observation rather than a trend, and it lines up with the project's position as a mature tool rather than a rising one: a stable 2017-era codebase, roughly 9.4k stars, and a README that concentrates on install commands, the CLI surface and platform build guides. For readers, the value is the low-friction command set above; the project's age and canonical ownership matter more to adoption than any one ranking.