# UTM

49 Hacker News commenters recommended UTM and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (3 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free open-source app for running Linux and Windows virtual machines on Apple silicon Macs, with near-native speed. Common caveats: Windows slower than in Parallels, and some guests lack graphics acceleration.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs Linux desktops and VMs well (7 comments): "i'm using Linux just fine on an ARM desktop for a long time, via Apple Silicon hypervisor enabled via the UTM macos app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46071417)) "i run fedora and arch on my m2 air, via the UTM app which wraps Apple Silicon hypervisor, and it's _fantastic_." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47235094)) "With Apple Silicon virtualization, having macos and arch and fedora all going at once is amazing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755891))
- Near-native speed on Apple silicon (3 comments): "arm native linux or windows installations in utm/parallels/whatever run damn near native speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47735245)) "utm or parallels has linux going at near native speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47852261)) "UTM is free and is equivalent to KVM/QEMU in speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48648418))
- Graphics acceleration for Linux guests (4 comments): "hardware graphics acceleration is supposed to be natively supported out of the box when using UTM's Apple Virtualization Framework backend" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968759)) "OpenGL/virgl works great out of the box for me with UTM and Linux guests" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738530)) "fewer than you'd think, especially with Vulkan landing in UTM today" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46577661))
- Free and open source (2 comments): "You can also use UTM to run Windows for free and it is open source." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47367967)) "UTM is free and is equivalent to KVM/QEMU in speed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48648418))

## What people warn about

- Missing graphics acceleration in some setups (2 comments): "UTM doesn't support graphics acceleration so browser support will be hobbled" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48960632)) "the 2d hardware acceleration for Linux didn't work in UTM.app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46475814))
- Some Windows and FreeBSD guests fail (3 comments): "It doesn't work well - probably not at all for a modern version of Windows - but the tools exist." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47369545)) "FreeBSD 15 is a complete no-go for X right now on utm, rdp/vnc is the only way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46644240)) "Tried it earlier using UTM and the Apple hypervisor but didn’t boot." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46652516))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [QEMU](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qemu.md): 114 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
- [Tart by Cirrus Labs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tart.md): 20 recommend

## Cite as

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