A new BSD distribution I only learned about for the first time this weekend is smolBSD, a project built atop the netbsd-MICROVM kernel coming with NetBSD 11 for providing insanely fast booting micro-VMs intended for micro-services and similar environments.

With NetBSD's MICROVM kernel it's possible to boot in QEMU in around 10 milliseconds. Developers behind smolBSD took that and created a meta-OS and microVM generator to build tiny VM images that are fast booting and catering to your individual workloads/services. Ultimately you end up with ultra-fast, minimal, and reproducible micro-services from this smolBSD project.

smolBSD advertises on their project site at [1]smolBSD.org that it's possible to build and boot your own customized BSD system in seconds. It's also possible to easily build Docker images from smolBSD too.

For those curious like I and wanting to learn more about smolBSD, it was presented yesterday at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels. A video recording of the smolBSD presentation can be found at [2]FOSDEM.org .



[1] https://smolbsd.org/#about

[2] https://fosdem.org/2026/schedule/event/BGPF3M-smolbsd/