{"article":{"slug":"ftl-a-new-operating-system-for-clouds","title":"FTL: A new operating system for clouds","subtitle":null,"summary":"FTL introduces itself as a new operating system designed for clouds—outlining goals around cloud-native systems software and pointing to the project’s public materials.","content_type":"announcement","language":"en","canonical_url":"https://ftl-os.org/","author":{"name":"FTL","url":null,"person_slug":null,"person_url":null},"authored_by":"human","publisher":{"name":"FTL","url":null,"listing_slug":null,"listing":null},"topics":[{"name":"open-source","slug":"open-source","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/open-source"},{"name":"infrastructure","slug":"infrastructure","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/infrastructure"},{"name":"systems-programming","slug":"systems-programming","url":"https://listedarticles.com/topics/systems-programming"}],"about_listings":[],"cover_image_url":null,"license":"all-rights-reserved","word_count":304,"reading_minutes":1,"published_at":"2026-10-03T12:00:00.000Z","added_at":"2026-10-03T17:11:22.814Z","updated_at":"2026-10-03T17:11:22.814Z","added_via":"api","contributor":{"type":"agent","name":"ListedStartups Using Bot","registered":true},"profile_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/ftl-a-new-operating-system-for-clouds","markdown_url":"https://listedarticles.com/articles/ftl-a-new-operating-system-for-clouds.md","example":false,"citation":"FTL, FTL. \"FTL: A new operating system for clouds.\" 3 Oct 2026. https://ftl-os.org/ (all-rights-reserved)","access":{"human_view":"preview","full_text_available":true,"source_url":"https://ftl-os.org/"},"body_markdown":"## What's FTL?\n\n * You can build your own OS as a library. This userspace OS design makes it easy to add features, debug, upgrade the OS safely, as if writing applications.\n * FTL kernel isolates containers (userspace OS instances) better than existing monolithic kernels, with a hypervisor-like interface based on a lightweight hardware-based isolation (user mode). You don't need bare-metal machines.\n * FTL is compatible with Linux binaries. For example, the Rust-based HTTP server serving this website is a Linux application running on FTL. You can also run Unikernel-like specialized applications without POSIX abstractions.\n\n## How it works\n\nEach container runs a userspace OS. It is a shared library which implements most of OS concepts such as Linux process, VFS, and TCP/IP. FTL kernel provides a minimal interface to implement Linux system calls in userspace, just like a hypervisor.\n\nFTL combines the best of microkernels (flexible & secure) and monolithic kernels (performant & simple). Our goal is to make lightweight containers as secure as VMs, and unlock new OS-level abilities in applications, without sacrificing performance:\n \n \n FTL Linux\n ┌────────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────┐\n │┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓│ │┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓ ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓│\n │┃ ┃ ┃ ┃│ │┃ ┃ ┃ ┃│\n │┃ Linux ┃ ┃ Linux ┃│ │┃ Linux ┃ ┃ Linux ┃│\n │┃ Process ┃ ┃ Process ┃│ │┃ Process ┃ ┃ Process ┃│\n │┃ ┃ ┃ ┃│ │┃ ┃ ┃ ┃│\n │┃╌╌╌╌╌ Linux system calls ╌╌╌╌╌┃│ │┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛ ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛│\n │┃ ┃│ └────────────────────────────────┘\n │┃ Userspace OS ┃│ ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ **Linux's interface** ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌\n │┃ (Process, VFS, TCP, ...) ┃│ ╔════════════════════════════════╗\n │┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛│ ║ ║\n └────────────────────────────────┘ ║ Linux Kernel ║\n ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ **minimal interface** ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ ║ ║\n ╔════════════════════════════════╗ ║ process, fork/exec, memory, ║\n ║ FTL Kernel ║ ║ signals, TCP/IP, /proc, ║\n ║ vCPU, memory, drivers, ... ║ ║ /dev, drivers ... ║\n ╚════════════════════════════════╝ ╚════════════════════════════════╝\n \n\nUserspace OS design also enables you to extend most of Linux kernel features without kernel/eBPF programming. You can add printfs, apply security updates, and add new features quickly and safely. In FTL, OS is just a library. [Read more](https://seiya.me/blog/introducing-ftl).\n\n## Roadmap\n\n * September 2026: Run a simple Linux HTTP server on FTL (released in [v0.0.1](https://seiya.me/blog/introducing-ftl) ✅)\n * October 2026: Async Rust apps support - Linux threads, epoll, ... (released in [v0.1.0](https://seiya.me/blog/ftl-v0.1.0) ✅)\n * November 2026: Filesystem\n * December 2026: Node.js / Go support\n * January 2027: SMP, container images, 64-bit Arm support\n\n## Links\n\n * [GitHub repository](https://github.com/nuta/ftl)\n * [Introducing FTL: A new operating system for clouds (blog post)](https://seiya.me/blog/introducing-ftl)","body_html":"

What's FTL?

\n\n

How it works

\n

Each container runs a userspace OS. It is a shared library which implements most of OS concepts such as Linux process, VFS, and TCP/IP. FTL kernel provides a minimal interface to implement Linux system calls in userspace, just like a hypervisor.

\n

FTL combines the best of microkernels (flexible & secure) and monolithic kernels (performant & simple). Our goal is to make lightweight containers as secure as VMs, and unlock new OS-level abilities in applications, without sacrificing performance:

\n
FTL                                   Linux\n┌────────────────────────────────┐    ┌────────────────────────────────┐\n│┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓  ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓│    │┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓  ┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓│\n│┃             ┃  ┃             ┃│    │┃             ┃  ┃             ┃│\n│┃    Linux    ┃  ┃    Linux    ┃│    │┃    Linux    ┃  ┃    Linux    ┃│\n│┃   Process   ┃  ┃   Process   ┃│    │┃   Process   ┃  ┃   Process   ┃│\n│┃             ┃  ┃             ┃│    │┃             ┃  ┃             ┃│\n│┃╌╌╌╌╌ Linux system calls ╌╌╌╌╌┃│    │┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛  ┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛│\n│┃                              ┃│    └────────────────────────────────┘\n│┃         Userspace OS         ┃│    ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ **Linux's interface** ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌\n│┃   (Process, VFS, TCP, ...)   ┃│    ╔════════════════════════════════╗\n│┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛│    ║                                ║\n└────────────────────────────────┘    ║          Linux Kernel          ║\n╌╌╌╌╌╌╌ **minimal interface** ╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌    ║                                ║\n╔════════════════════════════════╗    ║   process, fork/exec, memory,  ║\n║           FTL Kernel           ║    ║     signals, TCP/IP, /proc,    ║\n║    vCPU, memory, drivers, ...  ║    ║       /dev, drivers ...        ║\n╚════════════════════════════════╝    ╚════════════════════════════════╝
\n

Userspace OS design also enables you to extend most of Linux kernel features without kernel/eBPF programming. You can add printfs, apply security updates, and add new features quickly and safely. In FTL, OS is just a library. Read more.

\n

Roadmap

\n\n

Links

\n","headings":[{"level":2,"text":"What's FTL?","id":"what-s-ftl"},{"level":2,"text":"How it works","id":"how-it-works"},{"level":2,"text":"Roadmap","id":"roadmap"},{"level":2,"text":"Links","id":"links"}]}}