Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

QEMU VS Basilisk II

Compare QEMU VS Basilisk II and see what are their differences

QEMU logo QEMU

QEMU (short for "Quick EMUlator") is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that...

Basilisk II logo Basilisk II

Basilisk II is an Open Source 68k Macintosh emulator.
  • QEMU Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-14
  • Basilisk II Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-08-23

QEMU features and specs

  • Open Source
    QEMU is completely open-source, meaning it is free to use and its source code is available for modification and improvement by the community.
  • Platform Support
    QEMU supports a wide range of architectures and platforms, allowing users to emulate systems from x86 to ARM and beyond.
  • Performance
    When used with KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine), QEMU offers near-native performance for virtual machines on x86 hardware.
  • Flexibility
    QEMU can be used for a variety of tasks, such as running virtual machines, debugging, or even virtualization for embedded systems.
  • Integration
    QEMU integrates well with other systems and tools, making it a versatile component in large, complex setups (e.g., OpenStack).

Possible disadvantages of QEMU

  • Complexity
    The vast array of features and configuration options can make QEMU overwhelming and difficult to set up for beginners.
  • Performance Overhead
    Without the use of KVM or other hardware acceleration, QEMU's performance can be significantly slower compared to other hypervisors.
  • Limited GUI
    QEMU primarily operates via command-line interface, which might not be user-friendly for individuals who prefer graphical user interfaces.
  • Sparse Documentation
    While improving, some parts of QEMU's documentation remain sparse or difficult to understand, which can pose challenges during advanced configurations or troubleshooting.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running multiple instances of QEMU can be resource-intensive on the host system, which may affect overall performance.

Basilisk II features and specs

  • Open Source
    Basilisk II is an open-source emulator, allowing developers and users to contribute to its improvement and customization without any licensing costs.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    It supports various operating systems including Windows, macOS, and Linux, offering users flexibility in choosing their preferred OS for running the emulator.
  • Classic Mac OS Experience
    Basilisk II provides the opportunity to run legacy applications and games from the era of Apple's 68k Macintosh computers, preserving software that may otherwise be inaccessible.
  • Active Community
    There is an active community of users and developers who contribute to forums and documentation, helping new users get started and troubleshoot issues.

Possible disadvantages of Basilisk II

  • Complex Setup
    The initial setup can be challenging for new users, as it requires obtaining a legally compatible Mac ROM image and configuring system settings properly.
  • Performance Limitations
    While capable of running many old applications, Basilisk II does not perfectly replicate the performance of original hardware, which can result in bugs or slowdowns.
  • Limited Hardware Emulation
    It focuses mainly on software emulation and lacks support for certain hardware peripherals, which can limit use scenarios for specific applications.
  • Legal Issues
    Using Basilisk II legally requires access to a Macintosh ROM and OS, which can be a legal gray area if users do not own an original Macintosh machine.

QEMU videos

What is QEMU?

More videos:

  • Review - Creating Virtual Machines in QEMU | Virt-manager | KVM
  • Review - Community Code Review & QEMU

Basilisk II videos

No Basilisk II videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to QEMU and Basilisk II)
Cloud Computing
94 94%
6% 6
Group Chat & Notifications
Virtualization
100 100%
0% 0
Gaming
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare QEMU and Basilisk II

QEMU Reviews

15 Lutris Alternatives
QEMU is a piece of open-source software for simulating hardware. It lets users of one operating system (OS) use apps made for another. The virtualization software could then be put on these host operating systems. It enables computers with one OS to use software made for a different OS. With the help of dynamic translation, users can do well in what they do. This software is...
Best Alternatives of VirtualBox for Windows
Short for Quick Emulator, QEMU is another free and open source virtualization solution for a variety of operating systems. While it is immensely powerful, it is also one of the least user friendly out there. QEMU offers a host of advanced capabilities and features that others of the same genre fall short of, including a wide variety of architectures in place of the...
10 Best VMware Alternatives and Similar Software
QEMU also allows users to run applications from other computers from within their operating system. QEMU’s great performance is ensured via a dynamic translation.
12 Best FREE Virtual Machine (VM) Software in 2020
QEMU is another popular emulator and virtualization machine, which is a short form of Quick Emulator. This system is written in C language.
Source: www.guru99.com
7 VirtualBox Alternatives You Can Consider
QEMU stands for “quick emulator” which is a highly capable open source and free virtualization software. It has support for Windows, Linux, and macOS as a guest and can also run on all three host platforms. Installing it is comparatively easier but gets a bit complicated while using it. While it doesn’t need a high configuration PC to run. To run your guest OS on the virtual...

Basilisk II Reviews

We have no reviews of Basilisk II yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Basilisk II should be more popular than QEMU. It has been mentiond 9 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

QEMU mentions (3)

  • Podman and production use
    Qemu.org, wiki.qemu.org, patchew.org, kvm-forum.qemu.org are all Podman containers on the same machine (running CentOS Stream 9) with an nginx front-end. Nginx and certbot are the only two things that run outside containers. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • From WampServer, to Vagrant, to QEMU
    As someone who enjoys playing video games, and a recent convert to Linux, I was well aware of the derth of support for games. I was also aware of some of the solutions, one of those being GPU passthrough to this thing called QEMU. QEMU is a fast and lightweight machine emulator and virtualizer. This was of course something that interested me, so I went about exploring QEMU and playing with it. When I first started... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Premium fonts on Linux
    Install the windows-version using https://WineHQ.org or put in an a VM, like https://qemu.org/. Source: almost 3 years ago

Basilisk II mentions (9)

  • Software Applications Incorporated
    Https://infinitemac.org, which is https://basilisk.cebix.net compiled for the web using https://emscripten.org. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How to Get and Run Rolypolys 2
    Basilisk II, at least for me, had issues when it came to loading game saves. It also had an issue where sound cut out entirely about an hour into the game, so I cannot personally recommend it for this particular game. I was recommended SheepShaver as an alternative. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • [Mac/PC] [90s?] Top down 2D action/arcade game
    ShadowWraith would have run best on a Mac with a 68040 processor, at least 10 MB RAM, running System 7.1, 7.5, or 7.6.1. You could try setting up Basilisk II to run it. MAME’s Mac emulation has also come along quite a bit in the last few years, although it can still be a bit rough around the edges. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Anyone have access to Apple’s serial number database? Case refers to a PowerMac10,1 with 1,42GHz G4 but actually boots into a PowerMac10,2 with 1,5GHz G4. SN is YM54904UTAA. Might just be the cleanest and prettiest lunch box Mac I have ever laid my hands on after a restoration job.
    I have a Mac mini (Early 2006) (Intel Core Solo) that I upgraded to a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo, on which I run the Basilisk II 68k emulator (informative support forums are here). Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Any way to open windows 69 word files
    That's actually really good news and explains why they don't have a file extension! It might still take some work, but you could very likely find the exact version of Word that he used to create the files on macintoshgarden.org and could then use something like Basilisk II to run it and open the files. Hopefully from there it's just a simple Save As to something a modern computer can understand. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing QEMU and Basilisk II, you can also consider the following products

VirtualBox - VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as...

Sheepshaver - Home page of the SheepShaver Macintosh emulator

VMware Workstation - VMware Workstation is a multiple operating system handler to easily evaluate the any other type of new operating systems.

Mini vMac - The Mini vMac emulator collection allows modern computers to run software made for early Macintosh...

Proxmox VE - Proxmox is an open-source server virtualization management solution that offers the ability to manage virtual server technology with the Linux OpenVZ and KVM technology.

Shoebill - Shoebill - a Macintosh II emulator that runs A/UX (and A/UX only).