What is KubeVirt used for?

KubeVirt is a Kubernetes add-on that lets you define, schedule and manage virtual machines through the Kubernetes API alongside containers. It is a good fit for running VMs and containers on one platform, and migrating virtual machine workloads to Kubernetes.

Is KubeVirt open source?

Yes. KubeVirt is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at kubevirt/kubevirt and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. KubeVirt is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host KubeVirt?

Yes. KubeVirt can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is KubeVirt an alternative to?

KubeVirt is an open-source alternative to Amazon EC2, VMware vSphere, Google Compute Engine and Azure Virtual Machines. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon EC2 include Incus, Harvester and LXD.

Is KubeVirt actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to KubeVirt was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.9.0, published on 30 July 2026. The project has 7.1k stars on GitHub.

KubeVirt: open-source alternative to Amazon EC2

About KubeVirt

KubeVirt is an add-on that brings virtual machine management to Kubernetes. Its aim is to give virtualization solutions a shared foundation on top of Kubernetes, so that workloads that need a full virtual machine can run in the same cluster as containers.

KubeVirt extends Kubernetes by adding virtualization resource types, especially the VM type, through Custom Resource Definitions. This lets the Kubernetes API manage VMs alongside all other resources. That functionality does not go into Kubernetes itself; instead KubeVirt supplies extra controllers and agents that run on an existing cluster. Through these, a VM can be declaratively created from a predefined definition, scheduled onto the cluster, launched, stopped and deleted.

KubeVirt is written in Go and licensed under Apache-2.0. The project provides a quickstart, user documentation, a blog, a YouTube channel and developer documentation covering architecture, components and the API reference.

Key features

VM resource types via Kubernetes CRDs
Declarative VM creation and deletion
VM scheduling on Kubernetes clusters
Start and stop VMs through the API
Controllers and agents added to existing clusters

Good fit for

→Running VMs and containers on one platform
→Migrating virtual machine workloads to Kubernetes

Built with: Go; Kubernetes
Tags: kubernetes; virtualization; virtual-machines; libvirt; cncf; go; infrastructure; devops

KubeVirt: questions and answers

What is KubeVirt used for?: KubeVirt is a Kubernetes add-on that lets you define, schedule and manage virtual machines through the Kubernetes API alongside containers. It is a good fit for running VMs and containers on one platform, and migrating virtual machine workloads to Kubernetes.
Is KubeVirt open source?: Yes. KubeVirt is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at kubevirt/kubevirt and is written mainly in Go.
Is KubeVirt free?: Yes. KubeVirt is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host KubeVirt?: Yes. KubeVirt can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is KubeVirt an alternative to?: KubeVirt is an open-source alternative to Amazon EC2, VMware vSphere, Google Compute Engine and Azure Virtual Machines. Other open-source alternatives to Amazon EC2 include Incus, Harvester and LXD.
Is KubeVirt actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to KubeVirt was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.9.0, published on 30 July 2026. The project has 7.1k stars on GitHub.