VirtualBox Alternatives for Mac

There are many alternatives to VirtualBox for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best Mac alternative is QEMU, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to VirtualBox and many of them are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Mac alternatives to VirtualBox are Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, UTM and Lima.

filter to find the best alternatives

VirtualBox alternatives are mainly Virtualization Tools, but if you're looking for Compatibility Layer Tools you can filter on that. Other popular filters include Linux, Windows, Open Source, Android, Free, Mac and Windows + Free. You can also filter by region, for example EU-based alternatives if you prefer software developed in the European Union. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to VirtualBox.
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Alternatives list

  1. QEMU icon
     304 likes

    QEMU, an open-source hypervisor, performs hardware virtualization, emulates CPUs using dynamic binary translation, and supports various architectures. It runs diverse unmodified guest OS, provides device models, and offers mixed translation modes for efficient execution.

    45 QEMU alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • BSD
     
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    7
  2. Virtualization software for running Windows, Linux, and other OSes on Mac. Supports Windows 11 on Apple Silicon, resource adjustments, and seamless app access and file sharing between OS environments.

    58 Parallels Desktop alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
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    1
  3. VMware Fusion icon
     119 likes

    Seamlessly run your favorite Windows applications and devices, on any Intel-based Mac. Built from the ground up for the Mac, VMware Fusion is the easiest way to switch to Mac—letting you bring all of your Windows applications with you, making the most of your Windows software...

    42 VMware Fusion alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  4. UTM icon
     29 likes

    UTM is a full featured system emulator and virtual machine host for iOS and macOS. It is based off of QEMU. In short, it allows you to run Windows, Linux, and more on your Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

    59 UTM alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • iPhone
    • iPad
    • visionOS
     
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    1
  5. Lima icon
     3 likes

    Lima launches Linux virtual machines on macOS, with automatic file sharing, port forwarding, and containerd.

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  6. RVVM icon
     3 likes

    RVVM is a virtual machine / emulator for RISC-V guests, which emphasizes on performance, security, lean code and portability. It already runs a lot of guest operating systems, including Linux, Haiku, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc.

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Linux
    • Windows
    • Mac
     
  7. VirtualBuddy icon
     1 like

    VirtualBuddy can virtualize macOS 12 and later on Apple Silicon, with the goal of offering features that are useful to developers who need to test their apps on multiple versions of macOS, especially betas.

    55 VirtualBuddy alternatives

    Cost / License

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  8. Multipass icon
     8 likes

    Multipass is a lightweight VM manager for Linux, Windows and macOS. It's designed for developers who want a fresh Ubuntu environment with a single command. It uses KVM on Linux, Hyper-V on Windows and HyperKit on macOS to run the VM with minimal overhead.

    63 Multipass alternatives

    Cost / License

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Windows
    • Linux
    • Snapcraft
     
  9. Veertu icon
     1 like

    Run Windows and Linux on your Mac alongside OS X. Veertu is simple, light, secure virtualization software designed for Mac.

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  10. Vmtek icon
     Like

    VMTek is the Mac virtualization platform you've been waiting for. Run multiple instances and versions of macOS*, Linux and other operating systems side-by-side on your Mac with ease. High performance Mac-native virtualization designed from the ground up to take advantage of...

    Cost / License

    • Paid
    • Proprietary

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
  11. lume VM icon
     3 likes

    A lightweight CLI and local API server to create, run and manage macOS and Linux virtual machines (VMs) natively on Apple Silicon.

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Open Source (MIT)

    Application type

    Platforms

    • Mac
    • Python
    • Apple Swift
    • Homebrew
     
  12. Boot Camp icon
     18 likes

    Boot Camp is a utility by that assists users in installing Windows 10 on Macs. Boot Camp guides users through non-destructive re-partitioning (including resizing of an existing APFS partition, if necessary) of their hard disk drive and automatically downloads Apple-provided...

    15 Boot Camp alternatives

    Cost / License

    • Free
    • Proprietary

    Alerts

    • Discontinued

    Platforms

    • Mac
     
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