RetroArch Alternatives

RetroArch is described as 'A portable, fast, and lightweight emulator frontend supporting classic and modern gaming systems with features like real-time rewinding and shader support' and is a very popular Game Emulator in the gaming software category. There are more than 100 alternatives to RetroArch for a variety of platforms, including Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iPhone apps. The best RetroArch alternative is DuckStation, which is free. Other great apps like RetroArch are Lemuroid, PlayOnLinux - PlayOnMac, OpenEmu and Lakka.

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RetroArch alternatives are mainly Game Emulators, but if you're looking for Game Library Managers or Compatibility Layer Tools you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Android, Windows, Linux and iPhone. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to RetroArch.
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Alternatives list

  1. Snes9x icon
     150 likes

    Snes9x is a portable, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) emulator. It allows you to play most games designed for the SNES and Super Famicom Nintendo game systems on your PC.

    28 Snes9x alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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  2. Mame icon
     96 likes

    MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. When used in conjunction with images of the original arcade game's ROM and disk data, MAME attempts to reproduce that game as faithfully as possible on a more modern general-purpose computer.

    24 Mame alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • AmigaOS
    • MorphOS
     
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    2
  3. mGBA icon
     34 likes

    mGBA is an open source emulator of the Game Boy Advance. The goals are speed and accuracy.

    42 mGBA alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
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    1
  4. ZSNES icon
     198 likes

    ZSNES is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator. Aside from emulation accuracy, many interface features first introduced in ZSNES have been adopted by other emulators. ZSNES interface features include: Smoothing and dynamic image scaling; screenshot capture; state...

    25 ZSNES alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  5. Citra icon
     29 likes

    An experimental open-source Nintendo 3DS emulator/debugger written in C++. At this time, it only emulates a very small subset of 3DS hardware, and therefore is only useful for booting/debugging very simple homebrew demos. Citra is licensed under the GPLv2. Refer to the license.

    18 Citra alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • Flathub
     
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    1
  6. Project64 icon
     112 likes

    Project64 is a Nintendo 64 emulator for the Windows platform. It employs a plugin system that allows 3rd party developers to implement their own software. It is an emulator, meaning that the user has the option to run ROM files that can be extracted from a Nintendo 64 game...

    26 Project64 alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
     
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    1
  7. ChimeraOS icon
     17 likes

    ChimeraOS (formerly GamerOS) is an operating system that provides an out of the box couch gaming experience. After installation, boot directly into Steam Big Picture and start playing your favorite games.

    18 ChimeraOS alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Platforms

    • Linux
     
  8. LaunchBox icon
     49 likes

    LaunchBox was originally built as an attractive frontend to DOSBox, but has since expanded to support both modern PC games and emulated console platforms. LaunchBox aims to be the one-stop shop for gaming on your computer, for both modern and...

    57 LaunchBox alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Freemium
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Android
     
  9. ePSXe icon
     130 likes

    ePSXe (enhanced PSX emulator) is an emulator of the PlayStation video game console for x86-based PC hardware. ePSXe makes use of a plugin system to emulate GPU, SPU, and CD drive functions, similar to the model first introduced in PSEmu Pro.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • Android Tablet
     
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    1
  10. Mythic icon
     11 likes

    An open-source Epic Games Launcher alternative and normal game launcher for macOS written in Swift. We started this project to create a GUI frontend for Legendary and to play Windows games using game porting toolkit by Apple.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  11. Ares, which apparently replaced higan, was formerly known as bsnes. The project was renamed after becoming a multi-system emulator.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
     
  12. Pegasus icon
     29 likes

    Pegasus is a graphical frontend for browsing your game library (especially retro games) and launching them from one place. It's focusing on customizability, cross platform support (including embedded devices) and high performance.

    50 Pegasus alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Android
    • Raspberry Pi
     
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