DOSBox
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 20 emulators
Recommended for running DOS and early Windows games and software reliably, with easy setup and no OS install. Critics say it is outdated, with some emulation inaccuracies.
Recommended for running DOS and early Windows games and software reliably, with easy setup and no OS install. Critics say it is outdated, with some emulation inaccuracies.
45 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 37
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 82%
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
- 37 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.6 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
Runs DOS-era games well
“Projects like eXoDOS and DOSBox (and its derivatives) have basically allowed most of DOS and win31 games to be in a very playable state.”
Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Games Preservation Is Hard and Sometimes Involves Private Detectives” “slightly older games from the DOS era works perfectly everywhere thanks to DOSBox”
Comment from 17 Nov 2025 in “Why Castrol Honda Superbike crashes on (most) modern systems” “very old DOS-based games from before 2000 can be emulated perfectly”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive” - Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Ubuntu LTS releases to 15 years with Legacy add-on”
- Comment from 10 Nov 2025 in “Games Preservation Is Hard and Sometimes Involves Private Detectives”
Easy setup, no OS install
“A big advantage of DOSBox is not needing to setup a real OS inside the emulator”
Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “86Box v5.3” “getting some ancient piece of software running in DOSBox is often not an issue”
Comment from 19 Jan 2026 in “Prediction: Microsoft Is Going to Do the Funniest Thing Imaginable” “With the ease and speed of browser-based DOSBox (look at internet archive)”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “SDL Now Supports DOS” - Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Super Monkey Ball ported to a website”
Stable, reliable virtual machine
“Over the years, DOSBox got sufficiently stable and PCs got sufficiently powerful that this gap could be closed.”
Comment from 20 Aug 2026 in “The little-known winstart.bat batch file” “such a fantastic and stable virtual machine”
Comment from 2 Nov 2025 in “Writing FreeDOS Programs in C” “DOSBox is a great virtual machine.”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 on Hacker News Runs Windows 3.1 software
“dosbox plus win3.11 and some ingmount commands worked just fine”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “Always Bet on Text” “they ran them under MS-DOS in DOSbox, and saved the grief”
Comment from 26 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Who's still keeping a DOS machine up because the business depends on it?” “I used dosbox to install Windows 3.1”
Comment from 1 May 2026 on Hacker News
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Outdated, inaccurate emulation
“The original DOSBox is essentially frozen in time at this point, with many things not being emulated correctly.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs” “it is quite embarrassing to ship a CPU emulator with broken floating point math as the default”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Detecting DOSBox from Within the Box” “it doesn't implement RDTSC properly (that the game uses for timing)”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs” Gaps with non-game software
“16 bit programs dont seem to work at all though - you need wine or dosbox”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Windows 1.0 and the WinAPI, 40 Years Later” “DOSBox’s main goal was to play games - and that lots of “non game things” didn’t work”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “Detecting DOSBox from Within the Box” “didn't work as well with printing”
Comment from 25 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Who's still keeping a DOS machine up because the business depends on it?”
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
40 of the 56 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“you can have that today by installing WINE+DOSBox+Darling on Linux”
“they ran them under MS-DOS in DOSbox, and saved the grief”
“didn't work as well with printing”
“I had very good luck with DosBox on a pile of games from that era and older lately.”
“they will run everywhere that DOSBox runs, which is pretty much everywhere”
“Over the years, DOSBox got sufficiently stable and PCs got sufficiently powerful that this gap could be closed.”
“DOSBox, which I absolutely love, has some limitations.”
“dosbox would be easier to set up and to interact with”
“I don't think you can get much better than the synth in DOSBOX”
“16 bit programs dont seem to work at all though - you need wine or dosbox”
“The original DOSBox is essentially frozen in time at this point, with many things not being emulated correctly.”
“it doesn't implement RDTSC properly (that the game uses for timing)”
“The Slirp backend for the NE2000 networking driver is the big one for me.”
“Termux and DOSBox are great for running or writing software on a phone.”
“I used dosbox to install Windows 3.1”
“I play games in DOSBox all the time and I also write software”
“With the ease and speed of browser-based DOSBox (look at internet archive)”
“it is quite embarrassing to ship a CPU emulator with broken floating point math as the default”
“DOSBox’s main goal was to play games - and that lots of “non game things” didn’t work”
“If you play older games, particularly DOS/Win95 era titles, the concrete reality is that DOSBox and Wine have better compatibility.”
“What I like about DOSbox are its constraints and limitations.”
“Thanks to DOSBox and other emulators (FreeDOS is also not bad though) it is a fantastic OS (or virtual machine)”
“dosbox(-x) can play all windows games up to those which require ME”
“other projects like DOSbox / 86box / etc do a better job of it”
“DOSBox's TrueType fonts threw me off. It looks great of course”
“modern VMs such as DOSBOX do a better job emulating 16-bit stuffs”
“You could already play it "easy and without installation" with DOSBox for browsers”
“It had me set up with a dev environment in 2 mins using DOSBox.”
“getting some ancient piece of software running in DOSBox is often not an issue”
“DOSBox is a great virtual machine.”
“very old DOS-based games from before 2000 can be emulated perfectly”
“IPX-over-IP is also done on DOSBOX, which incidentally made it possible to play Master of Orion 2 with friends in other continents”
“dosbox plus win3.11 and some ingmount commands worked just fine”
“A big advantage of DOSBox is not needing to setup a real OS inside the emulator”
“companies shipping old DOS games make them run in dosbox”
“slightly older games from the DOS era works perfectly everywhere thanks to DOSBox”
“that run so well in DOSBox(-X)”
“Projects like eXoDOS and DOSBox (and its derivatives) have basically allowed most of DOS and win31 games to be in a very playable state.”
“I write everything to keep old db files synced so that I can still run the old app in DosBox”
“such a fantastic and stable virtual machine”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.