# QEMU Hacker Approved page: https://hackerapproved.com/p/qemu/ 94 people recommended QEMU in Hacker News comments, 9 had mixed feelings and 39 criticized it, November 2025 to October 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 12 months, in 83 threads. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A free emulator and VM tool for running other CPU architectures, Windows and disposable test machines, though emulation is slow, setup is fiddly and older operating systems run poorly. Summary written by Claude from the comments below. Claude agents reviewed it against the quotes on 2 Nov 2026. ## Why people recommend it - Emulates many CPU architectures (5 comments in the sample): "You can just use QEMU. It has RVA23 support and is probably still faster and easier than using actual machines." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49497027)) "makes it really simply to run podman/docker containers with images for other architectures" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873300)) "Qemu can run SPARC binaries and emulate a full SPARC system enough to run Solaris 2.6" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46415424)) - Disposable, snapshot-friendly disk images (4 comments in the sample): "Nonpersistent vm-based browser, I use qemu + cage + firefox and some glue logic to fire up a copy of a base image which gets…" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45949158)) "QEMU is also nice because you can just trash the disk images to get a clean start." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45981170)) "I currently use QMEU with qcow2 images to achieve this, works well enough." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48470845)) - Runs Windows and legacy software (4 comments in the sample): "I think nowadays the only safe and sane way is running Windows isolated as a VM (e.g. QEMU on proxmox" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501716)) "Windows in QEMU with PCI passthrough to the SCSI controller might have better chances to work." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47861989)) "QEMU is also a good option for Windows software that won't run on Wine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48960542)) - Great for builds, CI, testing (3 comments in the sample): "It's been invaluable to get the same development and testing tools on both platforms" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49385657)) "it's unmatched for batch uses, like as something part of a distro build chain" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915459)) "Having ability to spin up virtual machines speeds up development quite a bit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49399850)) ## What people warn about - Fiddly to configure and use (5 comments in the sample): "trying to keep up with seemingly arbitrary changes to the command-line options format over time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47843383)) "I find running different-endian software in QEMU really annoying and difficult." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47660778)) "I did have limited success with QEMU, but I never got it working quite right." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46091454)) - Emulation is slow (4 comments in the sample): "qemu which is slow but plenty good for running some code where this matters" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932339)) "Watching qemu build a thing for 10 minutes that I know should build in 45 seconds is painful." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47685428)) "Architecture emulation with qemu-userspace is 5-10x slower than running a native build." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48646730)) - Weak with older operating systems (3 comments in the sample): "their device drivers may rely on some hardware behavior of the peripherals that is not implemented in QEMU" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48344993)) "QEMU is extremely good at running modern operating systems, and not so much at older ones" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48343161)) "There's not a whole lot of interest in making Windows 9x run well on QEMU." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47877507)) - Large attack surface, escapes happen (2 comments in the sample): "the surface area of kvm and qemu is still very large and difficult to reason about" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49460230)) "it's bizarre to try and escape QEMU given how many times it has been done" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49454185)) ## Other virtual machine tools people recommend - [UTM](https://hackerapproved.com/p/utm/): 33 recommend, 12 mixed, 11 criticize - [VirtualBox](https://hackerapproved.com/p/virtualbox/): 25 recommend, 7 mixed, 31 criticize - [Lima](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lima/): 24 recommend, 7 mixed, 2 criticize - [Parallels Desktop](https://hackerapproved.com/p/parallels/): 24 recommend, 2 mixed, 13 criticize ## The badge A product earns the Hacker Approved badge when at least 10 people recommend it, recommenders outnumber critics at least 2 to 1 (mixed feelings count toward neither side), it was recommended in at least 4 of the 12 months and in at least 5 different threads, and no single thread supplies more than half of the people who recommend it. Health and money products are never badged. ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "QEMU", https://hackerapproved.com/p/qemu/ (94 recommend, 9 mixed, 39 criticize; Hacker News comments, November 2025 to October 2026). Counts updated 2 Nov 2026, with data through October 31, 2026.