# Visual Pinball

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Visual Pinball and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A free, highly customizable pinball simulator with a large community and many free tables; people report it runs well on Linux, Mac and mobile.

## Why people recommend it

- Highly customizable with active community (2 comments): "Stick to only Visual Pinball (not older emulators like Future Pinball)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087605)) "it's really mind-blowingly great and supported by a huge, very active community" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48086874))
- Large library of free tables (2 comments): "Stick to only Visual Pinball (not older emulators like Future Pinball)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087605)) "amazing tables people have made for them all available for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48083391))
- Runs well on Linux and other platforms (3 comments): "VPX now runs on Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android. And it runs great on those platforms" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48084549)) "It works fairly well for me in Linux on WINE, even with Visual PinMAME." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48085999)) "last time i tried on Debian it just worked" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48087166))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Space Cadet Pinball](https://hackerapproved.com/p/space-cadet-pinball.md): 15 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Visual Pinball", https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-pinball/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).