Writing about unikernels has been on my backlog for over a year. I find the technology intriguing, if not fascinating.

I eventually chose to approach the topic in the form of a tutorial mixed with lightly explained core concepts about unikernels. That tutorial is freely available on Ivan Velichko’s iximiuz Labs platform at

Hands-On Introduction to Unikernels.

I find this format particularly engaging as it allows you to follow along by building and running stuff, either in the web-based playground environment prepared specially for the learning material, or inside your own Linux sandbox if you prefer to set everything up yourself.

Whether that’s fair or not, it is difficult nowadays not to compare unikernels with containers. From that perspective, Bryan Cantrill went as far as declaring unikernels unfit for production.

I believe that unikernels do deserve their place in production, not as a replacement for containers but alongside them, in roles where they shine such as (not exhaustively) CPU-bound, resource-constrained, single-threaded workloads. And hey, they are also a worthy technology for learning about operating systems!

At the time I am writing these words, my tutorial is on the front page of Hacker News, a sign that the technology generates interest, and a well deserved publicity for Ivan’s fantastic platform.