FEX-Emu
Hacker ApprovedRanked 2 of 4 x86 emulators by recommenders
Free open-source emulator that runs x86 Linux apps and Windows games on ARM devices, with strong performance. Critics say it is hard to get running and has bugs on some hardware.
Free open-source emulator that runs x86 Linux apps and Windows games on ARM devices, with strong performance. Critics say it is hard to get running and has bugs on some hardware.
28 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 23
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 82%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 23 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 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
Impressive performance on ARM
“greatly increasing the performance of most recent Windows games on ARM Linux”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm” “Incredible job keeping performance high.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “FEX: A fast usermode x86 and x86-64 emulator for ARM64 Linux” “Really impressed with the performance.”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices” - Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices”
Runs x86 apps and games on ARM
“It's not how fast this stuff runs that impresses me, it's that it runs at all.”
Comment from 9 Jan 2026 in “RTX 5090 and Raspberry Pi: Can It Game?” “broadly useful for getting legacy x86 stuff running on ARM systems”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Never Bet Against x86” “FEX lets you run Steam games on phone hardware.”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” - Comment from 23 Nov 2025 in “Discontinuation of ARM Notebook with Snapdragon X Elite SoC”
Valve-sponsored open source project
“their contributions to Wine and Fex will enable other Linux gaming platforms”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “The console wars have been lost” “their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Steam Frame starts at $1059” “Valve-sponsored FEX project”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Steam Machine” Better than box86 in use
“nowadays FEX works better than box86 in my experience”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Steam Machine” “much slower than Box64 or FEX”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Deterministic Fully-Static Whole-Binary Translation Without Heuristics”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Project rejects AI, prompting forks
“Unfortunately, FEX is no llm, so I'll have to fork.”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Building a Linux GPU Driver for the M4 Mac Mini in One Month” “FEX is anti-AI, so I will have to fork.”
Comment from 18 Sep 2026 in “The scourge of x86 emulation” Bugs on some hardware or setups
“I've tested it on an Ampere workstation, and was trying it on a Pi, but it seems with Trixie, there may be some bugs”
Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices” “upstream FEX doesn't play very nice with Apple Silicon in the first place”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm”
Other x86 emulators people recommend
The three most recommended other x86 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 4 x86 emulators, rankedWhat people said
25 of the 30 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“FEX lets you run Steam games on phone hardware.”
“FEX is anti-AI, so I will have to fork.”
“this project (FEX) is amazing”
“Unfortunately, FEX is no llm, so I'll have to fork.”
“their open source initiatives with proton and fex should not be discounted”
“their contributions to Wine and Fex will enable other Linux gaming platforms”
“Fex is great in a sense but getting it run is a herculean feat”
“much slower than Box64 or FEX”
“Wine can run on aarch64 with FEX reasonably well already”
“broadly useful for getting legacy x86 stuff running on ARM systems”
“It's not how fast this stuff runs that impresses me, it's that it runs at all.”
“cobbled together components like FEX and wine/proton”
“the performance is not that impressed”
“greatly increasing the performance of most recent Windows games on ARM Linux”
“upstream FEX doesn't play very nice with Apple Silicon in the first place”
“Incredible job keeping performance high.”
“Many Windows games run this way for example.”
“Wow decent results.. impressed.”
“Really impressed with the performance.”
“FEX is the shootstring, extra special discount budget (not maligning) version of Rosetta”
“I've tested it on an Ampere workstation, and was trying it on a Pi, but it seems with Trixie, there may be some bugs”
“we can expect to see a similar sort of growth in the FEX emulator”
“nowadays FEX works better than box86 in my experience”
“Valve-sponsored FEX project”
“if FEX is targeting those specs I don't see a stability issue”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.