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What is the Xen Project?

The Xen Project is the home for several virtualization-related open source projects. The community is focused on advancing virtualization in a number of different commercial and open source applications, including server virtualization, Infrastructure as a Services (IaaS), desktop virtualization, security applications, embedded and hardware appliances, and automotive/aviation.

The Xen Project develops virtualization technologies powering the world’s largest clouds in production and is the foundation of many commercial virtualization products from Citrix, Huawei, Inspur, and Oracle. The Xen Project code is the basis for several security solutions, including Qubes OS, Bromium vSentry, A1Logic, AIS SecureView, Adventium Labs Magrana Server, Bitdefender HVI, Star Labs Crucible Hypervisor, Zentific Zazen, and Dornerwork’s Virtuosity Hypervisor.

That maturity, stability, and versatility the Xen Project created in its 15 years are second to none.

What technologies are part of the Xen Project?

The Xen Project has created a number of open source technologies for specific purposes:

  • The Xen Project® Hypervisor is the open source standard for hardware virtualization and the foundation for all solutions hosted on the Xen Project website. It includes a build configuration for Arm that targets embedded and mobile devices on the Arm architecture.
  • Drivers for the Xen Project® Hypervisor are delivered with host operating systems such as Linux and BSD distributions. The project maintains Windows drivers, which are developed as part of the Windows PV Drivers project.
  • XAPI is a Xen Project toolstack for a enterprise-ready virtualization platforms based on the Xen Hypervisor. XAPI adds further management functionality to Xen and adds many integrations for cloud, storage, and networking solutions. XAPI is used by the Citrix Hypervisor, XCP-ng and Magrana Server.
  • The project also hosts a number of Unikernel technologies: Unikraft, which is an SDK to build Unikernel bases; Mirage OS which is a Ocaml based Unikernel.

If you are unsure which technology is right for you, check out our team portals. In addition read, the Xen Overview document introduces Xen’s architecture, components and some of the key choices you will have to make.

Open Source

Software hosted on XenProject.org is, and always will be, open source. The code is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL2). Projects hosted on the Xen Project website are developed by a worldwide community of individuals from around the globe that follow a governance process based on openness, transparency, and meritocracy.

A Linux Foundation Collaborative Project

Projects under The Linux Foundation are independently funded software projects that harness the power of collaborative development to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems. By spreading the collaborative DNA of the largest collaborative software development project in history, The Linux Foundation provides the essential collaborative and organizational framework so project hosts can focus on innovation and results. Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects span the enterprise, mobile, and embedded markets and are backed by many of the largest names in computing.

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