If you’ve ever looked at a stack of old NUCs or spare PCs in the corner of your room and thought, “I should turn that into a mini data center,” you aren’t alone. Setting up a private cloud usually means wrestling with massive enterprise tools, but Canonical’s MicroCloud is designed to make it actually approachable.
Here’s the lowdown on what it is, how it stacks up, and whether it’s worth your time.
What is MicroCloud?
At its heart, Ubuntu MicroCloud isn’t a brand-new piece of software. Instead, it’s a clever orchestrator that staples together three very reliable tools:
LXD: For running your virtual machines and containers.
Ceph: For distributed storage (so if one disk dies, your data lives on).
OVN (Open Virtual Network): For the networking side of things.
The magic is in the initialization. It handles the “clustering” part of these tools so you don’t have to manually configure networking protocols or storage pools across three different nodes.
The “I just want it to work” Setup
Assuming you have three machines with Ubuntu installed and a secondary empty disk for storage, the setup is surprisingly short. You just need the snap package:
My Lab Configuration
For this test, I used the following:
Physical Hardware NUC 32GB RAM, 12 Core CPU, 1 TB SSD 2 x Raspberry Pi 5 1 x Raspberry Pi 4
The “I just want it to work” Setup
Assuming you have three machines with Ubuntu installed and a secondary empty disk for storage, the setup is surprisingly short. You just need the snap package: Bash
Install the necessary components
sudo snap install microcloud
sudo snap install lxd
sudo snap install microovn
Kick off the wizard
sudo microcloud init
The wizard will scan your local network for other nodes, ask which disks you want to use for Ceph, and then configure the cluster. Once it’s done, you interact with it just like a regular LXD setup.
Bash
Launching a VM on your new cloud
lxc launch ubuntu:22.04 my-server --vm
How it stacks up
| Feature | Ubuntu MicroCloud | Proxmox VE | K3s (Lightweight K8s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best For | LXD/LXC enthusiasts | Traditional HomeLabs | Container-only workloads |
| Setup Difficulty | Very Low (CLI Wizard) | Medium (Web GUI) | Medium (Config heavy) |
| Storage | Ceph (Built-in) | ZFS / Ceph / LVM | Longhorn / Local |
| Footprint | Small | Moderate | Very Small |
The Good Stuff (Advantages)
- The “LXD” Factor: If you already like LXD for its simplicity compared to Docker or full-blown KVM, this is a natural evolution.
- Zero-Touch Clustering: It genuinely feels like magic how it finds other nodes on the subnet.
- Hyper-Converged: You get compute, networking, and storage in one neat package.
The Not-So-Great Stuff (Disadvantages)
- Snap-Heavy: If you aren’t a fan of Snaps, you’re going to have a bad time—it’s the only supported way to run it.
- Rigidity: It expects a very specific environment (Ubuntu, specific networking). If you want to customize the under-the-hood Ceph settings, it can get hairy.
- Hardware Requirements: You really need at least three nodes to get the “High Availability” benefits of Ceph.
The Verdict
So, should you use it?
Is it worth it?
If you want a private cloud that feels like a professional environment but doesn’t require a week of reading documentation to stand up, yes. It’s perfect for developers who need to spin up VMs for testing or for hobbyists who want to play with distributed storage without the headache.
However, if you are looking for a flashy Web UI to click around in, you might find yourself drifting back toward Proxmox. MicroCloud is very much a “CLI-first” experience.
Final Score: 4/5 ⭐️ Very capable.
References
- Ubuntu MicroCloud: https://documentation.ubuntu.com/microcloud/latest/microcloud/tutorial/
https://documentation.ubuntu.com/microcloud/v2/microcloud/