v86
Ranked 3 of 4 x86 emulators by recommenders
Free browser-based x86 emulator that boots real Linux and other operating systems in a web page, handy for sharing OS demos. Main caveat: it is 32-bit only.
Free browser-based x86 emulator that boots real Linux and other operating systems in a web page, handy for sharing OS demos. Main caveat: it is 32-bit only.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 75%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 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
Easy to share OS demos
“it's so much easier to send people a link to a web page to poke at your OS than to send them an image”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “How I fell in love with Erlang” “v86 is a really cool idea, having Aurion OS run in a browser would be amazing for demos.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Aurion OS – A 32-bit GUI operating system written from scratch in C” “It's always fun to have an in browser demo of a little OS like this.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Minimal x86 Kernel Zig” - Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “I wrote a Pong game in a 512-byte boot sector”
- Comment from 29 May 2026 in “I Am Retiring from Tech to Live Offline”
- Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Crazierl – An Erlang Operating System”
Good for hobby OS projects
“v86 is a really cool idea, having Aurion OS run in a browser would be amazing for demos.”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Aurion OS – A 32-bit GUI operating system written from scratch in C” “A browser environment shows the thing quite well; and easy networking is cool too.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “JSLinux Now Supports x86_64” “It's always fun to have an in browser demo of a little OS like this.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “Minimal x86 Kernel Zig” - Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Crazierl – An Erlang Operating System”
Maintainers accept contributions well
“It's a nice project, and they've taken three PRs from me (so far)”
Comment from 11 Nov 2025 in “How I fell in love with Erlang” “I've had a wonderful experience with submitting PRs”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Aurion OS – A 32-bit GUI operating system written from scratch in C”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
No 64-bit x86 support
“Apptron uses v86 because its fast. Would love it for somebody to add 64-bit support to v86”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “JSLinux Now Supports x86_64” “currently v86 is 32-bit only and OCaml 5 has dropped support for native 32-bit backends”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “An O(x)Caml book that runs” “x86_64 is not supported yet”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “JSLinux Now Supports x86_64”
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
19 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I find the "alternatives" are half baked clones of v86 or crappy sandboxes that don't really add anything.”
“this one is based on v86 so it will be less performant”
“currently v86 is 32-bit only and OCaml 5 has dropped support for native 32-bit backends”
“which is handy for sending links to demos”
“it's super lovely for hobby os demos”
“v86 is a really cool idea, having Aurion OS run in a browser would be amazing for demos.”
“I've had a wonderful experience with submitting PRs”
“Ooh that looks great, I'll enjoy exploring this!”
“Apptron uses v86 because its fast. Would love it for somebody to add 64-bit support to v86”
“A browser environment shows the thing quite well; and easy networking is cool too.”
“x86_64 is not supported yet”
“might be a more 1:1 fully open sourced alternative”
“It's always fun to have an in browser demo of a little OS like this.”
“it's not particularly easy to programmatically run shell commands via v86”
“one of the issues of copy.sh/v86 is that its ephemeral”
“You could provide a live online demo using v86”
“It's a nice project, and they've taken three PRs from me (so far)”
“it's so much easier to send people a link to a web page to poke at your OS than to send them an image”
“I frequently used copy.sh/v86 and was actually building a tinycore fork”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.