Sub-millisecond VM restore. Hardware KVM isolation. Cross-architecture emulation. Content-addressed storage. Every workload, one platform.
From microVMs that wake faster than a network round-trip to full Windows guests and legacy SCADA emulation — all managed through a single CLI.
Neutron Stardust isn't one trick. It's the complete CAS virtualization layer inside Volt — from ephemeral microVMs to persistent Windows desktops to cross-architecture emulation.
VMs that sleep when idle and wake in microseconds. True zero-cost when there's no traffic — not paused, fully deallocated.
Full hardware-assisted virtualization for production Linux workloads. Headless, virtio-optimized, and built for density.
Full-featured KVM guests with OVMF firmware, TPM 2.0 emulation, VNC access, and USB passthrough. Run real Windows in production.
Run ARM, RISC-V, MIPS, or PowerPC workloads on x86 hardware — or emulate legacy x86 systems with full TCG software translation.
Every VM image, snapshot, and QEMU profile is stored in content-addressed storage. Instant deduplication, zero-copy clones, and global distribution.
Five independent isolation layers. An attacker would need to defeat all of them to escape the VMM sandbox. No single point of failure.
All benchmarks on Intel Xeon Silver 4210R, 376 GB DDR4 ECC, NVMe SSD. 15 iterations per configuration, outliers removed at 2σ. Comparison target: Firecracker v1.6.0.
| Restore Configuration | Time | vs. Firecracker |
|---|---|---|
| Firecracker v1.6.0 | 102ms | baseline |
| Stardust disk (no pool) | 31ms | 3.3× faster |
| Stardust in-memory (no pool) | 24.5ms | 4.2× faster |
| Stardust disk + VM pool | 1.04ms | 98× faster |
| Stardust in-memory + VM pool | 0.551ms | 185× faster |
Whether you're running serverless functions, emulating legacy hardware, or giving every customer their own isolated VM — Neutron Stardust has a profile for it.
True scale-to-zero with sub-millisecond cold starts. Functions wake faster than a DNS lookup. No warm pool waste.
One VM per customer with full kernel-level isolation. No noisy neighbors. VMs hibernate when the customer is offline — pay only for active tenants.
Pristine build environments in milliseconds. Every pipeline run gets an isolated VM, restored from a golden snapshot. No state leaks between builds.
Full Windows 11 with TPM, Secure Boot, VNC, and USB passthrough. Remote dev environments, compliance testing, or VDI — all running on KVM.
Emulate legacy x86 systems, SCADA controllers, or decades-old firmware without dedicated hardware. Full TCG software translation keeps old systems alive.
Build and test for ARM64, RISC-V, MIPS, or PowerPC — all on your x86 servers. No special hardware. No cross-compilation nightmares.
Spin up game server instances in milliseconds as players connect. Scale down when they leave. GPU passthrough for graphics-intensive workloads.
Isolated malware analysis environments. Restore to a known-good state in microseconds. Every sample gets a fresh, disposable VM with full hardware isolation.
Pre-configured development VMs that boot instantly from CAS snapshots. Every developer gets an identical, isolated environment. Changes tracked as deltas.
~24,000 lines of Rust compiled into a 3.9 MB binary. Type-2 KVM hypervisor with demand-paged memory, pre-warmed VM pools, and content-addressed storage.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ Stellarium CAS Layer │ │ │ │ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │ │ │ Chunk A │ │ Chunk B │ │ Chunk C │ │ Chunk D │ ... │ │ │ (2MB) │ │ (2MB) │ │ (2MB) │ │ (2MB) │ │ │ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ │ │ ▲ shared ▲ unique ▲ shared ▲ unique │ │ │ │ Zero-copy reference │ │ │ │ │ ▼ │ │ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Neutron Stardust VMM │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ KVM_SET_USER_MEMORY_REGION → cached chunks │ │ │ │ mmap MAP_PRIVATE → demand-paged fault-in │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ VM Pool: Pre-warmed VMs absorb KVM_CREATE_VM cost │ │ │ │ Restore: Claim → mmap → registers → devices │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ Total: 0.551ms │ │ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ QEMU Integration Layer │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ kvm-linux │ kvm-uefi │ emulate-x86 │ │ │ │ emulate-foreign │ Profiles stored in CAS │ │ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ │ │ │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ Security Layers │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ seccomp-bpf (78 syscalls) │ Landlock LSM │ │ │ │ Capability drop │ Namespaces │ Memory bounds │ │ │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
VM memory is mmap'd with MAP_PRIVATE — execution begins immediately. Pages fault in on-demand as the guest touches them. Cold pages never leave disk.
KVM_CREATE_VM takes ~24ms. The pool creates VMs in advance, absorbing that cost outside the critical path. VMs become fungible resources, shaped at restore time.
Four QEMU sub-profiles — kvm-linux, kvm-uefi, emulate-x86, emulate-foreign — stored, versioned, and deduplicated in Stellarium alongside microVM snapshots.
Neutron Stardust ships with Volt. One install, every virtualization capability. No Docker. No compromise.