Open-source VMware Workstation alternatives

Quickemu is a wrapper for QEMU that aims to do the right thing automatically when you create virtual machines. You choose the operating system you want to run, and the tools handle configuration. It is a set of shell scripts released under the MIT license, with no need to work through exhaustive QEMU options.

Two programs do the work: quickget downloads the upstream operating system and creates the configuration, and quickemu inspects your hardware and launches the virtual machine with settings that suit your computer. Virtual machines and their config can be stored anywhere, such as external USB storage or a home directory, and running them needs no elevated permissions.

Originally built for quickly testing Linux distributions, it now supports macOS releases from Mojave to Sequoia, Windows 10 and 11 including TPM 2.0, Windows Server, most BSDs and unusual systems such as FreeDOS, Haiku and ReactOS. The README cites nearly 1000 operating system editions. Features include SPICE clipboard sharing, VirtIO and Samba file sharing, and ARM64 guests. Hosts can be Linux or macOS.

QEMU is a generic, open-source machine emulator and virtualizer. It can emulate a complete computer so that an operating system built for one architecture runs on a host with a different one, and it can also act as the device model behind hardware-assisted virtual machines.

It works in three main modes. Full-system emulation runs operating systems for any supported machine on any supported host architecture. User-mode emulation runs Linux or BSD programs compiled for another architecture. Virtualization mode runs KVM and Xen guests with near-native performance. Projects such as libvirt and libguestfs build on it.

QEMU is written in C and distributed under the GNU GPL, with some components under other licenses. The GitHub repository is an official mirror where pull requests are disabled; changes are submitted through the process described on the project website, and users are asked to rely on release tarballs from qemu.org. The project is a member of Software Freedom Conservancy.

Virtual Machine Manager, usually called virt-manager, is a graphical desktop tool for managing virtual machines through libvirt. Most usage is with QEMU/KVM virtual machines, though Xen and libvirt LXC containers are also well supported, and common operations should work with any libvirt driver. It is written in Python and licensed under GPL-2.0.

The project also ships several command-line tools. virt-install creates new libvirt virtual machines, virt-clone duplicates existing ones, and virt-xml edits existing machines or manipulates their libvirt XML. Together they cover both interactive desktop use and scripted workflows for administrators who prefer a terminal.

Dependency details and installation instructions are in the INSTALL.md file, and the code can be launched directly from a git checkout for quick testing. Bug reporting guidance, contribution instructions and translation information are published on the project website and in the repository, and the team can be reached on IRC.

VirtualBox is general-purpose full virtualization software for x86 64 hardware, with version 7.1 adding macOS on Arm. It is aimed at laptop, desktop, server and embedded use. This repository contains the source code for Oracle VirtualBox, written mostly in C, and the project is licensed under GPL-3.0.

It has a graphical user interface and is available for Linux, Windows, macOS and Solaris. The README calls out flexible networking and interactive performance as strong points. It is meant for anyone who needs to run several operating systems at once and has basic knowledge of PCs and operating system installation, with software testing named as a typical benefit.

Because VirtualBox is a complex product with many platform-specific dependencies, the README points to separate build instructions. The User Guide covers features and configuration, a technical documentation set is aimed at developers, and tutorials show how to install and run virtual machines. Oracle customers with a support contract use Oracle Support, while everyone else can use the forums and issue tracker.