86Box
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 20 emulators by recommenders
Accurate emulator of old IBM PC hardware for running vintage operating systems, games and software. Critics note it is slower than less accurate emulators and weak on ARM.
Accurate emulator of old IBM PC hardware for running vintage operating systems, games and software. Critics note it is slower than less accurate emulators and weak on ARM.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 25
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 93%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 25 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 13 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Accurate emulation of real hardware
“86Box's better emulation of real hardware makes it far easier to setup the drivers and in general make the OS work well”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “86Box v5.3” “86Box is aimed at accurately representing real hardware behavior”
Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “86Box v5.3” “86box runs very faithfully to the real silicon”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini” Runs old operating systems well
“Usually it is better to drop an old OS image into a 86box”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “ATAboy is a USB adapter for legacy CHS only style IDE (PATA) drives” “it's better to just use 86Box for those operating systems”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Windows 9x Subsystem for Linux” “86Box is extremely good at running old operating systems”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “86Box v6.0” Good for old games and programs
“I use it on my MacBook to run that sweet spot of Windows 95/98 games”
Comment from 22 Dec 2025 in “86Box v5.3” “emulators like 86box simulate the hardware just fine for old games”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Building an FPGA 3dfx Voodoo with Modern RTL Tools” “86box is a great option for old programs and games”
Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux” - Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Linux gamers on Steam cross over the 3% mark”
Wide selection of virtual hardware
“an amazing cross-platform project if you want to emulate an entire computer”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini” “the large selection of virtual hardware available to emulate”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slower than less accurate emulators
“Simulators like 86Box simulate an IBM PC clone at a much greater detail, but that is paid by being much slower”
Comment from 31 May 2026 in “86Box v6.0” “86Box it's a joke compared to the raw performance you can get with DosBOX-X”
Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Porting 3D Movie Maker to Linux” “Fully software using 86box/pcem but performance will suffer.”
Comment from 9 Aug 2026 in “Triton: DirectX 11 Driver for QEMU”
Other emulators people recommend
The four most recommended other emulators, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 20 emulators, rankedWhat people said
35 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“AI code is legally nebulous and relying on it for a serious project has major risks.”
“Agentic AI has allowed 86Box to make massive strides forward.”
“it seems promising for anything that requires low level/cycle accurate emulation”
“an amazing cross-platform project if you want to emulate an entire computer”
“It's great for nostalgia, and if friends come over they have fun showing their kids things like SkiFree, Jezzball, and Encarta 96.”
“86Box is just accurate enough to run the original unmodified firmware. It does not emulate cache and RAM behavior”
“the large selection of virtual hardware available to emulate”
“86box runs very faithfully to the real silicon”
“One can build a really close approximation with 86box”
“86Box is like that and I like it.”
“your best bet is probably something like 86Box”
“Fully software using 86box/pcem but performance will suffer.”
“Everything runs perfectly.”
“Simulators like 86Box simulate an IBM PC clone at a much greater detail, but that is paid by being much slower”
“86Box is extremely good at running old operating systems”
“It runs so well on my Mac Mini M4 Pro system that it has effectively replaced my real 500 MHz Celeron rig”
“Not as good as QEMU, but worth it to try.”
“86Box it's a joke compared to the raw performance you can get with DosBOX-X”
“86box is a great option for old programs and games”
“it's better to just use 86Box for those operating systems”
“i was just in win xp 32bit sp2 few weeks ago using 86box compiling something”
“not very performant for games on ARM”
“other projects like DOSbox / 86box / etc do a better job of it”
“emulators like 86box simulate the hardware just fine for old games”
“Usually it is better to drop an old OS image into a 86box”
“running an emulator on another architecture is a better solution”
“86Box's better emulation of real hardware makes it far easier to setup the drivers and in general make the OS work well”
“86Box is aimed at accurately representing real hardware behavior”
“Slackware should install the same way as a real PC with the hardware configuration you select.”
“I use it on my MacBook to run that sweet spot of Windows 95/98 games”
“Only one on the market that runs virtual hardware with proper speeds”
“this now includes a floppy drive sound emulator”
“86Box is a pretty good full-system emulator for everything up to the early 3D era.”
“86Box is what you want for this kind of nostalgic programming”
“emulating old slow games can work”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.