QEMU/KVM
Hacker ApprovedVirtualization hypervisor in Developer tools
People recommend it as a free, reliable way to run virtual machines on Linux, including Windows guests, using the QEMU/KVM command line or virt-manager. Critics note its large codebase and attack surface.
People recommend it as a free, reliable way to run virtual machines on Linux, including Windows guests, using the QEMU/KVM command line or virt-manager. Critics note its large codebase and attack surface.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 15
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 94%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 15 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 15 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 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
Free, reliable VM setup on Linux
“I've been running either Qubes OS or KVM/QEMU based VMs as my desktop daily driver for 10 years.”
Comment from 30 Dec 2025 in “Toro: Deploy Applications as Unikernels” “KVM/QEMU is the only logical and sane choice on Linux”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” “QEMU on Linux with kvm is gold.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” - Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000”
Runs Windows guests well
“Between Wine, Proton, and QEMU/KVM there isn't any need for me to boot windows anymore”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “Windows 11's Patch Tuesday nightmare gets worse” “virt-manager makes Qemu/kvm backing images for windows 10 or 11 easy.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux” “it runs so well in QEMU/KVM”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “What was nice about the UI of Windows 2000” Simple enough with command line
“manually setting up one or a handful of KVM/qemu powered virtual machines is not actually that hard at all”
Comment from 16 Mar 2026 in “Home Assistant waters my plants” “you'll do fine without the libvirt tower of babel, with just the qemu/kvm cli”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian” Good for isolated, secure setups
“I think the most secure setup, though not so convenient for the average user, is a separate machine with QEMU/KVM.”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Clawk – Give coding agents a disposable Linux VM, not your laptop” “The next best option is a type II hypervisor like Qemu/kvm on Linux”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “Ask HN: Type 1 Hypervisor for use on a laptop?” “you can use a full VM (KVM/QEMU)”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “I got hacked: My Hetzner server started mining Monero”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Large attack surface, memory-unsafe code
“it has a huge surface area of features (all in memory unsafe languages) that have to be fixed”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “VMs won't contain cyber-capable agents”
What people said
14 of the 16 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it worked without any obvious problems”
“it has a huge surface area of features (all in memory unsafe languages) that have to be fixed”
“I think the most secure setup, though not so convenient for the average user, is a separate machine with QEMU/KVM.”
“you'll do fine without the libvirt tower of babel, with just the qemu/kvm cli”
“it runs so well in QEMU/KVM”
“manually setting up one or a handful of KVM/qemu powered virtual machines is not actually that hard at all”
“kvm-qemu, windows image, block network access to the windows update servers, problem solved?”
“virt-manager makes Qemu/kvm backing images for windows 10 or 11 easy.”
“Between Wine, Proton, and QEMU/KVM there isn't any need for me to boot windows anymore”
“QEMU on Linux with kvm is gold.”
“KVM/QEMU is the only logical and sane choice on Linux”
“I've been running either Qubes OS or KVM/QEMU based VMs as my desktop daily driver for 10 years.”
“you can use a full VM (KVM/QEMU)”
“The next best option is a type II hypervisor like Qemu/kvm on Linux”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.