virt-manager
Hacker ApprovedRanked 8 of 19 virtual machine tools by recommenders
Recommended as a fast, lightweight GUI for KVM/QEMU virtual machines, with easy GPU and USB passthrough. Main caveat: critics find the interface unintuitive.
Recommended as a fast, lightweight GUI for KVM/QEMU virtual machines, with easy GPU and USB passthrough. Main caveat: critics find the interface unintuitive.
25 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 8
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 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
Reliable for everyday use
“It's my go-to management interface for VMs like this.”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian” “I still use it for home projects and it's great!”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian” “I use it multiple times a day, and it's great!”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian” - Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian”
Easy GPU and USB passthrough
“I was using KVM with virt-manager on Debian bullseye and I have a great experience especially with GPU passthrough.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey” “using virt-manager I can GPU/USB passthrough with just a few clicks and no command line needed”
Comment from 7 Jun 2026 in “I am giving up on VM Gaming” “Best/easiest is probably virt-manager, with 2 GPUs, a cheaper one for the host”
Comment from 7 Jun 2026 in “I am giving up on VM Gaming” Simpler than alternatives
“for me was simpler just use Virtual Machine Manager”
Comment from 10 Aug 2026 in “Docker Sandboxes – Disposable, isolated sandboxes for AI agents” “virt-manager is probably a simpler choice”
Comment from 21 Aug 2026 in “How to compromise your system with a job interview” Easy Windows VM creation
“The virt-manager is easy for most Desktop folks looking to drop Win11 in a frozen backing-image sandbox”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey” “virt-manager makes Qemu/kvm backing images for windows 10 or 11 easy.”
Comment from 28 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft forced me to switch to Linux”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unintuitive, inconsistent interface
“Virt manager is the least intuitive (discounting actively antiuser crap) program I've ever dealt with.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey” “GUI might not be as powerful, but in my experience, it's similarly non-intuitive as alternatives”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “The Switch to Linux and the Beginning of My Self-Hosting Journey” “It's usable (?) as a toy: numerous gui inconsistencies and lack of security isolation”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “Ditching Vagrant: VMs with KVM and Virsh on Debian” Frustrating setup and past problems
“fighting a lot of nonsense like I had in the past with virt-manager on Linux hardware”
Comment from 7 Sep 2026 in “Finder is so frustrating and has been since day one” “The setup was too hard and it didn't work anyways.”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great” “Solves a lot of problems I had with virt-manager”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Building a TUI is easy now”
Other virtual machine tools people recommend
The four most recommended other virtual machine tools, 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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QEMU | 114 | 42 | 73% | 12 | 16 yrs4 owners | Approved |
| UTM | 49 | 11 | 82% | 12 | 1 yr3 owners | Approved |
| VirtualBox | 34 | 33 | 51% | 12 | 18 yrs3 owners | — |
| Lima | 31 | 3 | 91% | 11 | — | Approved |
| virt-managerThis page | 17 | 8 | 68% | 6 | — | Approved |
What people said
26 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“fighting a lot of nonsense like I had in the past with virt-manager on Linux hardware”
“virt-manager is probably a simpler choice”
“for me was simpler just use Virtual Machine Manager”
“as cool as the good old virt-manager”
“I use it multiple times a day, and it's great!”
“I have been using virt-manager and sleeping soundly that it was a secure isolation level.”
“It's usable (?) as a toy: numerous gui inconsistencies and lack of security isolation”
“I still use it for home projects and it's great!”
“it worked solidly and reliably”
“You can add directories to the storage, including ones in your home directory. Generic is actually the default option”
“It's my go-to management interface for VMs like this.”
“it hides the VM files in its own directory with permissions that aren't yours”
“Best/easiest is probably virt-manager, with 2 GPUs, a cheaper one for the host”
“using virt-manager I can GPU/USB passthrough with just a few clicks and no command line needed”
“"virt-manager" is pretty okay”
“Solves a lot of problems I had with virt-manager”
“GUI might not be as powerful, but in my experience, it's similarly non-intuitive as alternatives”
“I was using KVM with virt-manager on Debian bullseye and I have a great experience especially with GPU passthrough.”
“Virt manager is the least intuitive (discounting actively antiuser crap) program I've ever dealt with.”
“The virt-manager is easy for most Desktop folks looking to drop Win11 in a frozen backing-image sandbox”
“virt-manager makes Qemu/kvm backing images for windows 10 or 11 easy.”
“I can boot it directly using virt-manager, so thats kinda solves some windows specific stuff”
“The setup was too hard and it didn't work anyways.”
“It's really fast and lightweight (my laptop stays cold at idle while running the Windows VMs)”
“qemu instance managed by virt-manager (for autostart and managed shutdown)”
“Can't you use virt-manager?”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.