Rosetta 2
Hacker ApprovedThe most recommended of 4 x86 emulators
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.
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.
43 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 31
- criticize it
- 12
- approval share
- 72%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 31 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Fast x86 emulation performance
“The x86_64 performance on Rosetta 2 was often higher at launch than the prior generation of Intel chips running those same binaries natively.”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning” “ARM Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x86-64 binaries with excellent performance.”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Parallels Confirms MacBook Neo Can Run Windows in a Virtual Machine” “Rosetta 2 is unmatched on other Arm desktops where QEMU is required”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “Arm's Cortex X925: Reaching Desktop Performance” - Comment from 21 Nov 2025 in “FEX-emu – Run x86 applications on ARM64 Linux devices”
- Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra”
- Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Steam Frame”
- Comment from 10 Jun 2026 in “macOS Container Machines”
- Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning”
Runs the widest range of software
“an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Killed by Apple” “You can totally run x86_64 windows games just fine on Apple silicon.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “People keep flocking to Linux, not just to escape Windows” “Running x86 code on ARM macOS is the most solved part of the stack”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm” Seamless, reliable daily use
“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.”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Welcome (back) to Macintosh” “core part of computing for me now that frees me from needing a second device”
Comment from 13 May 2026 in “Deterministic Fully-Static Whole-Binary Translation Without Heuristics” “once you enable Rosetta, it's easier to reinstall your OS than to uninstall”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook, and you can too” - Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Ex-Windows chief praises MacBook Neo, laments Surface defeat”
Developers ported quickly, ecosystem intact
“you can deliver not particularly impressive performance and still not ruin your app ecosystem”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning” “Rosetta + the whole app developer community who really quickly released builds for M chips”
Comment from 13 Apr 2026 in “Apple's accidental moat: How the "AI Loser" may end up winning”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Retirement will break old software
“I just don't see how that's worth cutting off the ability to run Windows versions of Steam and games and software”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12” “older titles or software whose developers have moved on/passed will be lost to the sands of time”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Windows GOG DOS Games on M-Series Macs” “Next year they'll remove Rosetta 2, and all the games that require it will stop working.”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “PS5 Relapse Exploit” - Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Welcome (back) to Macintosh”
Removing emulators is a loss
“I didn't want the PPC emulator removed”
Comment from 4 Oct 2026 in “Turn off Apple Intelligence on macOS 27 and get its disk space back” “it's a tremendous loss overall”
Comment from 9 May 2026 in “Apple is increasing my cortisol levels” Little staff time, uncertain future
“Hard to imagine Rosetta 2 sticking around more than a couple years when Apple gets bored of supporting it.”
Comment from 1 Sep 2026 in “Dwarf Fortress is getting the mother of all magic updates” “They say that only a guy have worked fulltime on rosseta, so I think they don't care too much”
Comment from 23 Aug 2026 in “hdiutil is deprecated in macOS 27 Golden Gate” Performance throttling and bugs
“Rosetta 2 has some serious performance throttling going on somewhere in it”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “Games using anti-cheats and their compatibility with GNU/Linux or Wine/Proton” “a bug in Rosetta 2's Intel emulation that was affecting me”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “The internet discovers TLA+. Now what?”
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
40 of the 49 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“a much smaller footprint of system functionality will be addressable by x86-64 code that they can reasonably maintain going forward”
“I don't want the x86 emulator to be removed either.”
“I didn't want the PPC emulator removed”
“Next year they'll remove Rosetta 2, and all the games that require it will stop working.”
“a bug in Rosetta 2's Intel emulation that was affecting me”
“Hard to imagine Rosetta 2 sticking around more than a couple years when Apple gets bored of supporting it.”
“It runs on Rosetta w/ a few fixes.”
“In general Rosetta2 is much better than QEmu”
“They say that only a guy have worked fulltime on rosseta, so I think they don't care too much”
“with good performance, via Rosetta2”
“Apple put Rosetta 2 out and it was damn good.”
“Rosetta on Mac was obviously impressive.”
“older titles or software whose developers have moved on/passed will be lost to the sands of time”
“This is why Rosetta 2's looming retirement sucks.”
“I just don't see how that's worth cutting off the ability to run Windows versions of Steam and games and software”
“Forcing developers off of Rosetta 2 is a pro-consumer move because it gives the ultimate incentive for developers to modernize”
“boy was it cycle-hungry to do it”
“core part of computing for me now that frees me from needing a second device”
“an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software”
“it's a tremendous loss overall”
“once you enable Rosetta, it's easier to reinstall your OS than to uninstall”
“Rosetta + the whole app developer community who really quickly released builds for M chips”
“The x86_64 performance on Rosetta 2 was often higher at launch than the prior generation of Intel chips running those same binaries natively.”
“you can deliver not particularly impressive performance and still not ruin your app ecosystem”
“Rosetta 2 is genuinely impressive.”
“I'll definitely give you Rosetta, and even more so Rosetta 2.”
“still shipped Rosetta 2 to make it seamless for user anxiety”
“ARM Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x86-64 binaries with excellent performance.”
“Apple succeeded twice with Rosetta.”
“Rosetta 2 is unmatched on other Arm desktops where QEMU is required”
“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.”
“keeps many applications runnable that otherwise wouldn't be”
“Better than nothing, for sure.”
“Running x86 code on ARM macOS is the most solved part of the stack”
“Rosetta 2 has some serious performance throttling going on somewhere in it”
“You can totally run x86_64 windows games just fine on Apple silicon.”
“Rosetta is pretty damn fine as-is, and yet Apple is removing it”
“Rosetta performance is best in class to my knowledge”
“Apple's chips can be switched into a TSO mode and a few other minor tweaks that make x86 code run much, much faster”
“Apple already has excellent x86 emulation”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.