# WinApps

19 Hacker News commenters recommended WinApps and 11 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A free tool that runs Windows apps in Linux windows by using a Windows container and RDP, so they feel native; people say it is clever and works well on modern setups, though it needs a terminal and some setup.

## Why people recommend it

- Windows apps appear as native windows (3 comments): "It's pretty good. They use XfreeRDP to remote into the container and display individual windows." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086281)) "Winapps lets you run windows applications as if they were native to Linux" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46579392)) "which should behave mostly as a "native" app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46581396))
- Clever use of containers and scripting (2 comments): "I'm assuming the user doesn't need to manually configure the containers etc; it sounds like from the Readme it's low-friction." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46087887)) "I think it's a pretty clever use of scripting and containers on top of some fairly mature but hard to use pieces of software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46087036))
- Easy install from package manager (2 comments): "A normal user would just install Winapps from package manager, like with all the other Linux software." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47502003)) "It's simple enough to the point that a child could use it." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501220))

## What people warn about

- Slow performance and lag (2 comments): "Lag was certainly a factor, but there were also weird behaviors like visual glitches and UI rendering issues." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46090485)) "winapps was unusably slow" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46088548))
- Setup requires terminal and container steps (2 comments): "the next step involves opening a terminal. Instant fail." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47501596)) "running the container doesn't work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46087775))
- Uses RDP and Windows images with licensing concerns (3 comments): "What all of them avoid mentioning is that the images were intended by Microsoft for test and development purposes on Windows" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46085582)) "Thing thing uses RDP for communication which was designed for remotely administering servers over low speed networks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46086585)) "this is a tool that breaches several agreements and laws, including the particulary nasty one of DMCA" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46093902))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Wine](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wine.md): 329 recommend
- [Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/windows-subsystem-for-linux.md): 159 recommend
- [WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wsl2.md): 115 recommend
- [Cygwin](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cygwin.md): 25 recommend
- [Rosetta](https://hackerapproved.com/p/rosetta.md): 18 recommend

## Cite as

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