Software Alternatives & Reviews

ReactOS VS XNU

Compare ReactOS VS XNU and see what are their differences

ReactOS logo ReactOS

ReactOS is a free, modern operating system in alpha stage, based on the design of Windows XP/2003.

XNU logo XNU

XNU is a hybrid kernel combining the Mach kernel with components from FreeBSD and C++
  • ReactOS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-21
  • XNU Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-12

ReactOS videos

ReactOS Demo

More videos:

  • Review - ReactOS 0.4.12 Review - Window Snapping, New Fonts, New Looks!
  • Review - ReactOS Is An Open Source Windows-Inspired Operating System

XNU videos

Great News For JAILBREAK: Apple Open-Sourced The iOS (XNU) Kernel

More videos:

  • Review - [CB18] Smart Fuzzing XPC & XNU by Juwei Lin, Lilang Wu, Moony Li

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ReactOS and XNU)
Linux
57 57%
43% 43
Operating Systems
69 69%
31% 31
Linux Distribution
66 66%
34% 34
Audio Player
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

ReactOS might be a bit more popular than XNU. We know about 65 links to it since March 2021 and only 46 links to XNU. 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.

ReactOS mentions (65)

  • Questioning "The Value of Open Source Software"
    Https://reactos.org/ implement some of the windows API. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Windows 10 end of life could prompt torrent of e-waste
    You can use Rufus: https://rufus.ie/en/ To modify the ISO to turn off hardware check and TPM support for Windows 11 to install it on an unsupported PC. https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/wiki/FAQ#user-content-Help_I_dont_see_the_option_to_bypass_the_need_for_a_Microsoft_account_with_Windows_11 https://aros.sourceforge.io/ https://www.haiku-os.org/ and https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/ I know some third-world nations... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Microsoft Will Eventually Start Charging You for Windows 10 Security Updates
    I suppose you want ReactOS https://reactos.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Rumor: Windows 12 could become a subscription based operating system
    On a side note, in a universe where ReactOS[0] had comprehensive drivers support, would it be a better alternative to modern Windows? Or would desktop Linux? That's a fun thought exercize, at least for me :) [0] https://reactos.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • Microsoft Edge is starting to annoy me big time
    Anyone tried ReactOS recently? Supposed to be a clean-room FOSS Windows NT compatible OS. https://reactos.org/ It's still on my TODO. Mostly cause my parents want XP back. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
View more

XNU mentions (46)

  • ScummVM officially released in the App Store
    > ...even though they are technically in violation of the GPL by modifying and shipping bash binaries without full source - it is missing rootless.h (not the X11 file) They're not. They've covered this in two main ways: 1) By listing all their source code on https://opensource.apple.com/ (which links to their GitHub with all the source code) 2) By offering a complete machine-readable copy of the source code upon... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • macOS 13.5 source code released
    The XNU kernel has been open source for a very long time. https://opensource.apple.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XNU Note that this is not the full operating system/windowing system, it's just the kernel. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Apple’s new Proton-like tool can run Windows games on a Mac
    Apple does plenty of open source stuff. Safari's browser engine, Swift, libdispatch, the XNU kernel used by iOS and macOS, etc. And macOS is generally packed with open source things, like the default shell, zsh. Also, Metal actually predates Vulkan, so Vulkan was definitely not established when they started focusing on Metal. Yeah, they probably should consider supporting Vulkan now, but it's nothing to do with... Source: 11 months ago
  • DirectX 12 Support on macOS
    It's still not a great thing to do. Apple used to contribute a lot more, even if some of their stuff was exclusive to their platform. https://opensource.apple.com. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • [D] ClosedAI license, open-source license which restricts only OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Meta from commercial use
    Everything that includes copyleft code is open source. You can see https://opensource.apple.com for a full list. Source: 12 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing ReactOS and XNU, you can also consider the following products

Linux Mint - Linux Mint is one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions and used by millions of people.

Linux kernel - The Linux kernel is the operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating...

Ubuntu - Ubuntu is a Debian Linux-based open source operating system for desktop computers.

GNU Hurd - GNU Hurd (usually referred to as the Hurd) is a computer operating system kernel designed as a...

Arch Linux - You've reached the website for Arch Linux, a lightweight and flexible Linux® distribution that tries to Keep It Simple. Currently we have official packages optimized for the x86-64 architecture.

Linux-libre - Linux-libre is a GNU package that is maintained from modified versions of the Linux kernel.