{"slug": "utm", "name": "UTM", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 9, "warners": 0, "score": 4.861, "rising": 1.02, "first": "2026-01-19", "latest": "2026-09-08", "why": "With Apple Silicon virtualization, having macos and arch and fedora all going at once is amazing.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 3, "compare": 2, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "With Apple Silicon virtualization, having macos and arch and fedora all going at once is amazing.", "icon": true, "domain": "getutm.app", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://mac.getutm.app", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["UTM"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 793400048, "item_id": 49587503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587503", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's why i switched from Asahi a couple years ago to UTM in apple silicon hypervisor mode.", "excerpt": "I'd recommend reading up on it, and perhaps trying it, because it's very useful. For folks lamenting that the (awesome) Asahi efforts are challenged by reverse engineering of changes from M2 to M3, and so on, those changes vanish into the abstraction, but their benefits do not. That's why i switched from Asahi a couple years ago to UTM in apple silicon hypervisor mode. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hyperv", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on Apple silicon", "switched_from": "Asahi Linux", "story": "Asahi Linux on M3"}, {"id": 793396688, "item_id": 49587293, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587293", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the experience is indistinguishable from native", "excerpt": "Apple's hypervisor.framework lets other OS instances run very very fast with the UTM app (open source on github, but i use the prebuilt version from the App Store). In my case i've used arm native linuxes (arch with various compositors, kde, gnome, fedora) all on M2, M2 Max, M5 and the experience is indistinguishable from native. MacOS is running too. I think hardcore graphics folks might want direct accelerator acce", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "", "story": "Asahi Linux on M3"}, {"id": 790955510, "item_id": 49434719, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49434719", "by": "jlokier", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "some free and open source (QEMU, UTM, Lima, Colima)", "excerpt": "You can't run Linux directly on these. Asahi Linux supports up to M2 only. Linux runs very well in a VM on macOS. There are many good options for this, some free and open source (QEMU, UTM, Lima, Colima), some proprietary (VMware Fusion, Parallels). But Linux in a VM doesn't get access to the real GPU, so model performance is limited. Those running on the CPU perform well, and those needing the GPU don't. However, ma", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 780094256, "item_id": 48755891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755891", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-07-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Apple Silicon virtualization, having macos and arch and fedora all going at once is amazing.", "excerpt": "apple silicon is virtualization capable and the UTM app (on the app store, but open source so you can build it too) wraps Apple's hypervisor framework, allows me to run on my macbook air (m2 earlier, recently updated to m5 just to get more memory) macos as well as arm versions of both fedora and arch, with plasma and gnome (and i've used hyprland etc to toy around). it's important to set UTM to use Apple Silicon _vir", "context": "MacBook Air user", "use_case": "running VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "", "story": "Qualcomm Linux 2.0"}, {"id": 757895921, "item_id": 47368495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47368495", "by": "alwillis", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this GUI for Quem is pretty nice", "excerpt": "> Last I checked VirtualBox on Apple Silicon only permits the running of ARM64 guests. I used to use VirtualBox a lot back in the day. I tried it recently on my Mac; it's become pretty bloated over the years. On the other hand, this GUI for Quem is pretty nice [1]. [1]: https://mac.getutm.app", "context": "", "use_case": "VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "VirtualBox", "story": "Parallels Confirms MacBook Neo Can Run Windows in a Virtual Machine"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "jjtheblunt", "context": "MacBook Air user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755891", "date": "2026-07-01"}, {"by": "ivankra", "context": "Debian 13 guest on Mac", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738530", "date": "2026-01-23"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["running linux vms on apple silicon", "linux vms on macos", "run windows on mac", "running linux vms on macos", "running vms on apple silicon", "running linux on iphone"], "compared": [{"slug": "virtualbox", "name": "VirtualBox", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nixos", "name": "NixOS", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "parallels", "name": "Parallels", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "qemu", "name": "QEMU", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "asahi-linux", "name": "Asahi Linux", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "vmware-fusion", "name": "VMware Fusion", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "llama-cpp", "name": "llama.cpp", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46726016", "title": "Ask HN: What's the best virtual Linux desktop experience on macOS for devs?", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49586698", "title": "Asahi Linux on M3", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49602699", "title": "Leaving VMware just got harder after Broadcom pulled VDDK downloads", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433292", "title": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48753069", "title": "Qualcomm Linux 2.0", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48515336", "title": "A low-carbon computing platform from your retired phones", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"compare": 2, "recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 793674272, "item_id": 49604642, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49604642", "by": "SanjayMehta", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I now use UTM to host Windows 11 Pro on my mac for exactly one Windows application.", "excerpt": "As a user of VMware Desktop who switched to VirtualBox, my experience was VMware was just so much easier to use. I now use UTM to host Windows 11 Pro on my mac for exactly one Windows application. With the exception of suspend, it does the job.", "context": "", "use_case": "run Windows on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Leaving VMware just got harder after Broadcom pulled VDDK downloads"}, {"id": 793400048, "item_id": 49587503, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587503", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's why i switched from Asahi a couple years ago to UTM in apple silicon hypervisor mode.", "excerpt": "I'd recommend reading up on it, and perhaps trying it, because it's very useful. For folks lamenting that the (awesome) Asahi efforts are challenged by reverse engineering of changes from M2 to M3, and so on, those changes vanish into the abstraction, but their benefits do not. That's why i switched from Asahi a couple years ago to UTM in apple silicon hypervisor mode. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hyperv", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on Apple silicon", "switched_from": "Asahi Linux", "story": "Asahi Linux on M3"}, {"id": 793396688, "item_id": 49587293, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49587293", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-09-06", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the experience is indistinguishable from native", "excerpt": "Apple's hypervisor.framework lets other OS instances run very very fast with the UTM app (open source on github, but i use the prebuilt version from the App Store). In my case i've used arm native linuxes (arch with various compositors, kde, gnome, fedora) all on M2, M2 Max, M5 and the experience is indistinguishable from native. MacOS is running too. I think hardcore graphics folks might want direct accelerator acce", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "", "story": "Asahi Linux on M3"}, {"id": 790955510, "item_id": 49434719, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49434719", "by": "jlokier", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "some free and open source (QEMU, UTM, Lima, Colima)", "excerpt": "You can't run Linux directly on these. Asahi Linux supports up to M2 only. Linux runs very well in a VM on macOS. There are many good options for this, some free and open source (QEMU, UTM, Lima, Colima), some proprietary (VMware Fusion, Parallels). But Linux in a VM doesn't get access to the real GPU, so model performance is limited. Those running on the CPU perform well, and those needing the GPU don't. However, ma", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux VMs on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 780094256, "item_id": 48755891, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48755891", "by": "jjtheblunt", "date": "2026-07-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "With Apple Silicon virtualization, having macos and arch and fedora all going at once is amazing.", "excerpt": "apple silicon is virtualization capable and the UTM app (on the app store, but open source so you can build it too) wraps Apple's hypervisor framework, allows me to run on my macbook air (m2 earlier, recently updated to m5 just to get more memory) macos as well as arm versions of both fedora and arch, with plasma and gnome (and i've used hyprland etc to toy around). it's important to set UTM to use Apple Silicon _vir", "context": "MacBook Air user", "use_case": "running VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "", "story": "Qualcomm Linux 2.0"}, {"id": 776275872, "item_id": 48517242, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48517242", "by": "wky", "date": "2026-06-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Hypothetically you could run Linux inside UTM[0]", "excerpt": "This is neat. This group\u2019s approach of treating the devices as many weaker servers (basically a raspberry pi cluster) sounds like the most realistic way to reuse phone hardware at scale, especially with the backing of the actual hardware vendor. It\u2019s a genuine shame how locked down iPhones are compared to even Android. Hypothetically you could run Linux inside UTM[0] but outside the EU Apple makes it intentionally di", "context": "", "use_case": "running Linux on iPhone", "switched_from": "", "story": "A low-carbon computing platform from your retired phones"}, {"id": 757895921, "item_id": 47368495, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47368495", "by": "alwillis", "date": "2026-03-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this GUI for Quem is pretty nice", "excerpt": "> Last I checked VirtualBox on Apple Silicon only permits the running of ARM64 guests. I used to use VirtualBox a lot back in the day. I tried it recently on my Mac; it's become pretty bloated over the years. On the other hand, this GUI for Quem is pretty nice [1]. [1]: https://mac.getutm.app", "context": "", "use_case": "VMs on Apple Silicon", "switched_from": "VirtualBox", "story": "Parallels Confirms MacBook Neo Can Run Windows in a Virtual Machine"}, {"id": 749473889, "item_id": 46842118, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46842118", "by": "rickstanley", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I'm using an qcow2 Debian trixie arm image in UTM as playground", "excerpt": "Toady I used GLM 4.7 to port a C++ project of mine to Rust, so I could read and toy with it, to get into the language: https://codeberg.org/RickStanley/agatetepe-rs. Really interesting results, not sure how well it is written but works. I was quite found of Rust syntax; it certainly is not as convoluted as C++ (in my opinion). Then I read this article. Since I was already eye-balling Swift for some time, I decided to", "context": "", "use_case": "running Debian VM", "switched_from": "", "story": "Swift is a more convenient Rust (2023)"}, {"id": 747833297, "item_id": 46739581, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46739581", "by": "darkteflon", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I\u2019ll look into that - both UTM config and stock Debian.", "excerpt": "That\u2019s super helpful, thanks! I\u2019ll look into that - both UTM config and stock Debian. It seems that it depends on the distro though - I couldn\u2019t get it working on any of the distros I mentioned above, although admittedly this stuff is not my strong suit; rather than spend lots of time figuring out the ins and outs of each distro I was kind of hoping that commenters would help surface the best options for this setup g", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux VMs on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best virtual Linux desktop experience on macOS for devs?"}, {"id": 747816480, "item_id": 46738530, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46738530", "by": "ivankra", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenGL/virgl works great out of the box for me with UTM and Linux guests", "excerpt": "> on UTM (QEMU and Apple Virt Framework), but many of them don\u2019t appear to support GPU acceleration Uhh, it does. OpenGL/virgl works great out of the box for me with UTM and Linux guests (I'm on Debian 13), perfectly usable and performant enough to use with an external 4K monitor. There's virtualiazed Vulkan support which just shipped in UTM 5.0.0 this month - really exciting news! But it is still kinda buggy, maybe ", "context": "Debian 13 guest on Mac", "use_case": "Linux VMs on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best virtual Linux desktop experience on macOS for devs?"}, {"id": 747641139, "item_id": 46727571, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46727571", "by": "andrewbastin", "date": "2026-01-22", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I have tested Fusion, Parallels and UTM and Fusion seemed to be the most stable for me.", "excerpt": "I run NixOS within VMWare Fusion (Mitchell Hashimoto has posted something similar https://github.com/mitchellh/nixos-config) in my M4 Max MBP. It runs pretty well but may hit the battery life sometimes. There are some weird stuff that happens with their GPU accelaration and random Fusion crashes sometimes. I patched Hyprland locally in my config due to a weird (but documented) issue with their GPU accelaration implem", "context": "", "use_case": "Linux VM on macOS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best virtual Linux desktop experience on macOS for devs?"}, {"id": 746948705, "item_id": 46684294, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46684294", "by": "darkteflon", "date": "2026-01-19", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Is UTM any good? Any alternatives?", "excerpt": "Ffs. Alright, what\u2019s the best way for me to run Silverblue on Mac hardware these days with a full GPU-accelerated desktop experience? Is UTM any good? Any alternatives? I used to run Win 10 in Parallels on MacOS and it was excellent - that\u2019s the level of virtualisation polish I\u2019m going for. After 25+ years, I see the direction of travel - I\u2019m done with this bullshit. Yesterday my MacBook started ringing loudly in the", "context": "Mac developer, 25+ years on Apple", "use_case": "running Linux VM on Mac", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple testing new App Store design that blurs the line between ads and results"}]}