86Box

About

86Box is a low-level x86 emulator that runs older operating systems and software designed for IBM PC systems and compatibles, from the 1981 IBM PC 5150 through PCI-bus designs from fairly recent years. It offers an easy-to-use interface inspired by mainstream hypervisor software, accurate low-level emulation of 8086-based processors up to the Pentium, and a wide range of virtual machine customization options. It also supports many systems, peripherals, and output options, including MIDI via Windows built-in support, FluidSynth, or emulated Roland synthesizers, and can run MS-DOS, older Windows versions, OS/2, many Linux distributions, and other vintage systems.

The current stable release is v6.0, released May 31, 2026, available from the project's GitHub repository, while experimental builds built from the latest source code are also offered with the caveat that they may be less stable or performant. For macOS, the stated minimum requirement is macOS 10.14 Mojave or newer, and the site notes that emulation logic runs mostly in a single thread, so higher instructions-per-clock capacity helps emulate higher clock speeds. The site also lists third-party manager applications for handling multiple virtual machines, including MacBox for 86Box, which is macOS only, and notes that a built-in preview VM manager was introduced in v5.0.

86Box is released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later, and can optionally use munt, FluidSynth, Ghostscript, and Discord Game SDK under their own licenses. The project is free to use, with donations welcome via Patreon.