DEV Community: Chronic Engineering

AQEMU vs Hyper-V, VirtualBox, VMware and plain QEMU on Windows: an honest comparison

Chronic Engineering — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:04:23 +0000

People keep asking me the same question about AQEMU: "Why would I use this instead of Hyper-V / VirtualBox / VMware, or just QEMU itself?" Fair question. Those are mature tools, and for plenty of jobs they're the right answer.

So instead of a pitch, here's a table. For the other four tools I've only filled in what their own official docs say, and where I couldn't find it documented I've written "not documented" rather than guess. If I've got something wrong, tell me in the comments and I'll fix it.

The table

	AQEMU 1.6.0	Hyper-V	VirtualBox 7.2	VMware Workstation Pro	Plain QEMU on Windows
Runs on Windows on ARM64 (e.g. Snapdragon)	Yes, native ARM64 build. WHPX acceleration for ARM64 guests since 1.6.0, TCG for everything else	Yes, Arm64 VMs on Windows 11 22H2+ Arm PCs	Windows 11 Arm64 host is listed as an Experimental Feature	No. Docs require a 64-bit x86/AMD64 CPU	qemu.org lists x86_64 Windows builds (Stefan Weil, MSYS2); no ARM64 Windows build listed
Hardware acceleration on x64 Windows	WHPX, with TCG fallback (KVM on Linux)	Yes (it is the hypervisor)	Yes	Yes	WHPX accelerator available; you set it up by hand
Retro guests (DOS, Windows 9x)	Yes, profiles from DOS and Windows 1.x up; Win9x guests are forced to TCG	Not in Microsoft's supported guest list (oldest Windows client listed is Windows 7 SP1)	Manual says it can run DOS on x86; DOS/9x aren't in the supported-guest table	Not documented (I didn't find it in the docs I checked)	Yes, QEMU emulates the PC hardware, but you write the flags yourself
Non-x86 guest architectures	29 QEMU target architectures (PowerPC, RISC-V, MIPS, IBM Z, ARM and more) via TCG	Arm64 VMs on Arm hosts only; an x64 host can't run Arm64 VMs	x86/x64 on x86 hosts, Arm64 on Arm hosts	x86/x64 only (x86 hosts only)	Yes, same architectures, command line only
GUI with per-OS profiles	195 guest profiles with machine, CPU, disk, NIC, video and audio presets	Hyper-V Manager and Quick Create; no per-OS hardware profiles documented	New VM wizard picks settings per OS type	New VM wizard with guest OS selection	No official GUI
Drag-and-drop file copy into the guest	Yes, dropped files are presented to the guest as floppy A: or a USB drive, so it also works on DOS/9x with no guest tools	Not documented	Yes, needs Guest Additions	Yes, needs VMware Tools (Windows, Linux, Solaris 10 guests)	No
Licence	GPL-2.0, source on GitHub	Proprietary, part of Windows	Base package GPLv3; Extension Pack separately licensed	Proprietary	GPL-2.0
Price model	Store build is a one-time purchase with a 7-day free trial (no subscription); you can also build from source	Included with Windows 10/11 Pro or Enterprise, not available on Home	Free download	Free for personal, educational and commercial use since Nov 2024	Free download

Sources for the other columns: Microsoft Learn (installing Hyper-V, Arm64 VMs, supported guests), the VirtualBox manual and 7.2 changelog, Broadcom's Workstation Pro processor requirements and drag-and-drop docs, VMware's free-for-all announcement, and qemu.org/download.

How I'd actually read it

If you just want a fast Windows 11 or Linux VM on an x64 PC, Hyper-V, VirtualBox or VMware will do the job well, and they have guest tools for things like shared clipboards and seamless windows. AQEMU isn't trying to beat them there.

AQEMU is for the stuff those tools don't cover. It's a GUI around QEMU, so it inherits QEMU's reach: DOS and Windows 9x, PowerPC Mac OS X, RISC-V, IBM Z, IRIX, embedded boards, all from a wizard instead of a page of flags. The profiles exist because getting the right machine, CPU, disk bus and NIC for, say, a PowerPC guest is exactly the part that makes people give up on plain QEMU.

On Windows on ARM the gap is bigger. VMware Workstation doesn't run there, VirtualBox's Arm host support is still marked experimental, and Hyper-V only runs Arm64 guests. AQEMU runs natively on ARM64, uses WHPX for ARM64 guests since 1.6.0, and falls back to TCG (QEMU's software CPU emulator) for x86 and everything else. TCG is slower than hardware virtualisation, so a Win98 box is happy but don't expect a modern x64 desktop to fly.

And plain QEMU? Everything AQEMU does, QEMU can do, because AQEMU bundles QEMU 11 and drives it. The difference is that you don't have to know the incantations, and things like drag-and-drop file copy (the file shows up as floppy A: or a USB stick, which even DOS understands) are one gesture instead of building a disk image by hand.

Where AQEMU is weaker

To be fair to the others:

The other three have their own guest tools (Guest Additions, VMware Tools, Hyper-V integration services) built over many years.
Cross-architecture guests run on TCG, so they're emulated, not virtualised.
It's a small project, so the big vendors have far more testing behind them.

Try it

Microsoft Store (7-day free trial, then a one-time purchase): AQEMU on the Microsoft Store
Source, issues and releases (GPL-2.0): chronic8000/aqemu on GitHub

If a cell in that table is wrong or out of date, leave a comment with a link to the doc and I'll update it.

iOS 14 boots on Windows 11 on Arm: notes from wiring Inferno into AQEMU

Chronic Engineering — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:04:56 +0000

Last week I wrote a general intro to AQEMU, the Qt front-end I maintain for QEMU on Windows and Linux. This week is narrower: what happened when I pointed it at iOS on real Snapdragon hardware.

The short version

iOS 14 now boots inside AQEMU on Windows 11 on Arm, gets past the lock screen to the full home screen, and touch input works. As far as I know this may be the first time iOS has booted on Windows on Arm, though I'd be happy to be corrected.

How it works

AQEMU doesn't emulate iPhones itself. The heavy lifting is done by Inferno, ChefKiss's Apple Silicon device emulator, which is a fork of QEMU. AQEMU treats it like any other QEMU binary: it builds the command line, manages the VM file, and gives you a window to drive the guest.

A few things specific to the iOS profile:

No hardware acceleration. Inferno doesn't support WHPX, so the guest runs on QEMU's TCG software translation. On a modern Snapdragon it's still surprisingly quick.
Phone buttons in the toolbar. A phone has no keyboard shortcuts for Home or Side, so the VM window gets Vol-, Vol+, Home, Side and SOS buttons (you can see them across the top of the screenshot).
Touch works. Taps and swipes reach the guest, which is what gets you past the lock screen.

You need to supply your own legally obtained firmware and files. AQEMU doesn't ship any Apple software, and I'm not going to link to any.

Why Windows on Arm matters here

Most QEMU front-ends treat Windows on Arm as an afterthought. AQEMU ships native x64 and ARM64 builds, and on Linux it uses KVM. The 1.6.0 release that went live on the Microsoft Store this week added ARM64 WHPX, file copy and crash reporting, so normal ARM64 guests get proper acceleration while special cases like Inferno fall back to TCG.

Having a real Arm laptop to test on has made a big difference. A lot of the Windows on Arm fixes over the last few weeks came straight from running things on the device rather than guessing.

What's next

A community wiki on GitHub with install guides for each guest, including the trickier ones like iOS.
A serial monitor for guest and firmware logs is coming too.

Try it

AQEMU is GPL-2.0 and the source is on GitHub: chronic8000/aqemu. It comes with 230+ guest OS profiles, from DOS and retro machines through to RISC-V and PowerPC.

If you'd rather not build it yourself with MSYS2, there's a signed build on the Microsoft Store with a 7-day free trial.

What would you try booting first? Issues and ideas are welcome on GitHub.

AQEMU - a point-and-click QEMU front-end for Windows and Linux

Chronic Engineering — Fri, 16 Oct 2026 22:26:01 +0000

QEMU can emulate almost anything, but getting a guest running usually means a wall of command-line flags. AQEMU is my attempt to fix that: an open-source (GPL-2.0) Qt GUI that wraps QEMU and gives you ready-made machines instead.

What it does

Bundles QEMU 11, so there's nothing extra to install
Ships 195 ready-made guest profiles across 29 architectures: Windows 11 ARM, Windows 98, Solaris, TrueNAS, RISC-V and lots more
Native x64 and ARM64 builds for Windows, plus Linux builds
Hardware acceleration where the platform allows it: WHPX on Windows x64, KVM on Linux, with QEMU's TCG emulator as a fallback
An embedded VNC display, so guests run inside the app window

How it's built

AQEMU is a Qt 5 app in C++. The Windows builds use MSYS2 (GCC for x64, clang for ARM64) and are packaged as MSIX for the Microsoft Store. QEMU itself is upstream and unpatched, pulled in as a git submodule.

What's next

Hardware acceleration for ARM64 guests on Windows on Arm (via WHPX) is the next big piece of work.

Try it

Source: https://github.com/chronic8000/aqemu
Microsoft Store (7-day free trial): https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9P0HGKHQ9W19?cid=devto

Issues, feedback and guest profile requests are very welcome on GitHub.