Open Source Summit Korea 2026

Unikernels are specialized operating systems designed for efficiency by including only the components needed by an application. By eliminating the traditional user–kernel separation and omitting general-purpose services such as background daemons and unused device drivers, this design reduces system complexity and overhead while providing a fundamentally different execution model from conventional Linux systems.
This study examines the structure of Unikraft-based unikernels from a library operating system perspective. It also presents an empirical comparison with Linux under controlled conditions. Both systems were deployed on the same Xen hypervisor and executed on a hardware platform, running the same application with a common subset of POSIX APIs. Execution latency was measured, and assembly-level analysis was performed to investigate potential reasons for the observed differences.
The results are presented as an example of combining performance measurement and low-level inspection when analyzing specialized operating systems. Similar approaches may be applicable to other specialized OS or unikernel contexts, depending on the application and execution environment.