# Multipass

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Multipass and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free tool for running local VMs on macOS, Windows and Linux, installed with apt or brew. Main caveat: no clear guide to building it as a standalone program.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy cross-platform local Linux VMs (3 comments): "a local VM like multipass or a kind/microk8s cluster are perfectly fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46677536)) "Multipass is just an apt-get or brew command away." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48918161)) "Works on macOS, windows, Linux." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48918172))

## What people warn about

- Standalone build and install unclear (1 comments): "Canonical wont tell you how to compile it and install it as a standalone program" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47435913))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [QEMU](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qemu.md): 114 recommend
- [UTM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/utm.md): 49 recommend
- [VirtualBox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/virtualbox.md): 34 recommend
- [Lima](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lima.md): 31 recommend
- [Vagrant](https://hackerapproved.com/p/vagrant.md): 25 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Multipass", https://hackerapproved.com/p/multipass/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).