# Rosetta 2

31 Hacker News commenters recommended Rosetta 2 and 12 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Built-in translation layer that runs Intel apps on Apple Silicon Macs, praised for speed and seamlessness. Caveat: Apple is retiring it, threatening old games and software.

## Why people recommend it

- Fast x86 emulation performance (8 comments): "The x86_64 performance on Rosetta 2 was often higher at launch than the prior generation of Intel chips running those same binaries natively." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47755469)) "ARM Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x86-64 binaries with excellent performance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47368389)) "Rosetta 2 is unmatched on other Arm desktops where QEMU is required" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47230658))
- Runs the widest range of software (3 comments): "an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48095750)) "You can totally run x86_64 windows games just fine on Apple silicon." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46104428)) "Running x86 code on ARM macOS is the most solved part of the stack" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137192))
- Seamless, reliable daily use (4 comments): "Apple Silicon and Rosetta 2 are amazing precisely because the One Eye of Cupertino isn’t watching them so they can get real work done." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47225747)) "core part of computing for me now that frees me from needing a second device" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121887)) "once you enable Rosetta, it's easier to reinstall your OS than to uninstall" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48054912))
- Developers ported quickly, ecosystem intact (2 comments): "you can deliver not particularly impressive performance and still not ruin your app ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47748880)) "Rosetta + the whole app developer community who really quickly released builds for M chips" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47755904))

## What people warn about

- Retirement will break old software (4 comments): "I just don't see how that's worth cutting off the ability to run Windows versions of Steam and games and software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48339095)) "older titles or software whose developers have moved on/passed will be lost to the sands of time" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48357374)) "Next year they'll remove Rosetta 2, and all the games that require it will stop working." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49898589))
- Removing emulators is a loss (2 comments): "I didn't want the PPC emulator removed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49958683)) "it's a tremendous loss overall" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48079449))
- Little staff time, uncertain future (2 comments): "Hard to imagine Rosetta 2 sticking around more than a couple years when Apple gets bored of supporting it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49528700)) "They say that only a guy have worked fulltime on rosseta, so I think they don't care too much" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49412704))
- Performance throttling and bugs (2 comments): "Rosetta 2 has some serious performance throttling going on somewhere in it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113851)) "a bug in Rosetta 2's Intel emulation that was affecting me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49869157))

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Rosetta 2", https://hackerapproved.com/p/rosetta-2/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).