SmartOS is a free and open-source SVR4 hypervisor based on the UNIX operating system that combines OpenSolaris technology with bhyve and KVM virtualization.

[4][5] Unlike other illumos distributions, SmartOS employs NetBSD pkgsrc package management.

One of the many benefits of employing this boot mechanism is that operating system upgrades are trivial, simply requiring a reboot from a newer SmartOS image version.

This means that virtual machines are stored locally on each node and do not boot over the network from a central SAN or NAS.

KVM and QEMU were ported to SmartOS in 2011, and can be used on Intel CPUs with VMX and EPT support.