Windows on ARM
Shares rank 64 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
People recommend Windows on Arm for ARM laptops that run native apps as expected and feel much improved; the most common caveat is app incompatibility and weak performance under x86 emulation.
People recommend Windows on Arm for ARM laptops that run native apps as expected and feel much improved; the most common caveat is app incompatibility and weak performance under x86 emulation.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 26%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: 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
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Much better than it used to be
“Windows on Arm these days really isn't bad. It definitely sucked a lot several years ago”
Comment from 23 Jul 2026 in “LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps” “everything just works much better”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Windows Server 2025 Runs Better on ARM” Works fine for daily use
“Anecdotally Windows ARM works fine for me, although to be honest most of my work is command line + browser anyway.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Nvidia RTX Spark” “I use it daily and have zero problems.”
Comment from 6 Jun 2026 in “Nvidia is proposing a beast of a CPU system for Windows PCs”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Driver and hardware support gaps
“the underlying problem of drivers and other BS being able to block sleep and Windows not being able to handle it is unsolved”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “Why my Asus laptop kept rebooting after sleep and how to fix it” “Windows for ARM was kinda sunk by the fact that the GPU wasn't compatible enough”
Comment from 12 Nov 2025 in “Steam Frame” “Windows on ARM is worse and has zero drivers for Mac hardware as far as I know.”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 on Hacker News Poor performance, especially gaming
“Every use case I've looked at has been a minefield of app incompatibility and poor performance under x86 emulation.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for World Makers” “objectively terrible performance of Windows 10 on ARM at launch”
Comment from 4 Dec 2025 in “Valve reveals it’s the architect behind a push to bring Windows games to Arm” “Even gaming doesn't work that great on Windows ARM.”
Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Microsoft probably killed my Snapdragon Dev Kit” Behind macOS on hardware support
“Windows on ARM is worse and has zero drivers for Mac hardware as far as I know.”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “Windows ARM doesn't have the benefit of hardware assistance like macOS does”
Comment from 27 Nov 2025 in “Same-day upstream Linux support for Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5” “That’s a key part in why Windows Arm is such a substandard experience.”
Comment from 14 Mar 2026 in “Ex-Windows chief praises MacBook Neo, laments Surface defeat” App incompatibility and missing support
“Every use case I've looked at has been a minefield of app incompatibility and poor performance under x86 emulation.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “Surface Laptop Ultra: Made for World Makers” “MS SQL Server still wasn't supported on windows arm, which is about when I gave up on windows arm.”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “$2599 Microsoft Surface Laptop Ultra”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, 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 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
27 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the underlying problem of drivers and other BS being able to block sleep and Windows not being able to handle it is unsolved”
“Windows on ARM is a shitshow”
“MS SQL Server still wasn't supported on windows arm, which is about when I gave up on windows arm.”
“Windows on Arm these days really isn't bad. It definitely sucked a lot several years ago”
“I use it daily and have zero problems.”
“their lousy port of Windows to Arm processors”
“I'm not sure it would stand any chance to compete in the B2C space.”
“I really do question how well Windows on Arm is really going to work out long term.”
“Every use case I've looked at has been a minefield of app incompatibility and poor performance under x86 emulation.”
“This will be the third attempt at Windows on ARM.. hopefully this is the one”
“Anecdotally Windows ARM works fine for me, although to be honest most of my work is command line + browser anyway.”
“priced out of its league and cooling is awful for gaming on current laptops”
“everything just works much better”
“ARM Windows is locked down tightly”
“That’s a key part in why Windows Arm is such a substandard experience.”
“no mission then of ARM Windows running well on this”
“Windows on ARM has turned out to be an even bigger disaster”
“Even gaming doesn't work that great on Windows ARM.”
“explicitly can't run Linux”
“objectively terrible performance of Windows 10 on ARM at launch”
“taking something that's already pretty bloated and then trying to retrofit it into something new”
“are ARM64-native and run as expected.”
“Windows ARM doesn't have the benefit of hardware assistance like macOS does”
“Windows for ARM also had enormous restrictions compared to x86”
“Windows for ARM had kinda bad compatibility.”
“Windows for ARM was kinda sunk by the fact that the GPU wasn't compatible enough”
“Windows on ARM is worse and has zero drivers for Mac hardware as far as I know.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.