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Top 23 Emulator Open-Source Projects
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Project mention: I've built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-19
Some of these are runnable in the browser, for example here: https://copy.sh/v86/
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Project mention: What About iOS? Or, How a $30 Android Phone Embarrasses a $1000 iPad | dev.to | 2026-02-09
No, you cannot run Jenkins on iOS. The closest thing to Termux on iOS is iSH (Alpine Linux via x86 emulation), but Java is fundamentally broken on it. The only theoretically viable path involves running a full Linux VM on a $1000+ iPad Pro, and nobody has ever documented actually doing it. A $30 used Android phone does natively what a $1000 iPad can barely do in a virtual machine.
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Project mention: PS3 Emulator Devs Politely Ask That People Stop Flooding It with AI PRs | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-10
> If someone can’t write their own Agent.md for a project how are they going to validate the auto-completed text?
> This strikes me as the ideal LLM first contribution/PR, a file explaining the projects standards and testing and structure.
Why should the project maintainers write such a file, when the info already exists within the README? It is duplicated work at best, and a definitive sign of the incapabilities of the agent to properly parse the project's contribution guidelines.
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/blob/master/README.md#contrib...
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/wiki/Coding-Style
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3/wiki/Developer-Information
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Project mention: Badger Badger Badger Video Officially Preserved by British Film Institute | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-05-19
The original SWF file can be played by Ruffle (https://ruffle.rs/). Depending on your criteria for preservation a simple web page may be sufficient.
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Project mention: docker-android: A Docker Environment for Controlling Android Emulators from a Web Browser | dev.to | 2026-02-05
docker-android is an open-source project that allows you to run Android emulators inside a Docker container and control them remotely via a web browser. This enables the automation of testing in CI/CD pipelines and the creation of a scalable Android testing infrastructure in cloud environments without the need to install Android Studio.
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dolphin
Dolphin is a GameCube / Wii emulator, allowing you to play games for these two platforms on PC with improvements.
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In my case I'm a big fan of Ace Combat and PCSX2 has rendering issues in both software and hardware modes:
https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/10976
https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2/issues/12173
It's gotten better, but the best experience is still on original hardware.
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Project mention: Show HN: Xenia – A monospaced font built with a custom Python engine | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-18
There is a name collision with the Xenia emulator for the Xbox 360. https://xenia.jp/
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Unicorn Engine
Unicorn CPU emulator framework (ARM, AArch64, M68K, Mips, Sparc, PowerPC, RiscV, S390x, TriCore, X86)
Project mention: Capstone – lightweight multi-platform, multi-architecture disassembly framework | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-06-02As one who helped improved Capstone and its even more wonderful partner, Unicorn, I actually found an exploit in QEMU using Capstone/Unicorn.
Unicorn is a nearly-true software-based CPU emulator for ARM, AArch64, M68K, Mips, Sparc, PowerPC, RiscV, S390x, TriCore, X86 architecture.
This pair-up is arguably the best set of software tools out there.
QEMU? No worry, that's way back in QEMU v1.4 days (Intel IMUL lb/DWORD OPC_IMUL_GvEvlb opcode)
Fabrice fixed it then and is still blazing at QEMU 10.0 now. Ain't he awesome?
https://github.com/unicorn-engine/unicorn/issues/364
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Android Debug Database
A library for debugging android databases and shared preferences - Make Debugging Great Again
I am Amit Shekhar, Founder @ Outcome School, I have taught and mentored many developers, and their efforts landed them high-paying tech jobs, helped many tech companies in solving their unique problems, and created many open-source libraries being used by top companies. I am passionate about sharing knowledge through open-source, blogs, and videos.
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Project mention: Windows 95 in Electron. Runs on macOS, Linux, and Windows | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-11-17
If you mean does this support MacOS, yes it does. If you mean, has somebody written something like this only for (classic) MacOS instead of Windows 95, also yes -- https://github.com/felixrieseberg/macintosh.js/
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Project mention: FEX: A fast usermode x86 and x86-64 emulator for ARM64 Linux | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-11-21
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I got the idea of writing an emulator in JavaScript in the pre-Chrome era, circa 2007. I remember searching around trying to find whether somebody had done it before, and somebody on a forum declared “that’s not possible”.
To me, it was obviously possible, and I was determined to prove them wrong.
Anyway, this now exists because of that: https://github.com/bfirsh/jsnes
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Provenance
iOS & tvOS multi-emulator frontend, supporting various Atari, Bandai, NEC, Nintendo, Sega, SNK and Sony console systems… Get Started: https://wiki.provenance-emu.com |
Project mention: Provenance Emulator: Atari, Commodore, Game Boy and More | news.ycombinator.com | 2026-01-14 -
retrobios
Complete BIOS and firmware packs for RetroArch, Batocera, Recalbox, Lakka, RetroPie, EmuDeck, RetroBat, RetroDECK, RomM. Verified checksums, 6700+ files, 300+ emulators profiled from source code.
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box64
Box64 - Linux Userspace x86_64 Emulator with a twist, targeted at ARM64, RV64 and LoongArch Linux devices
Project mention: Linux on Snapdragon X Elite: Linaro and Tuxedo Pave the Way for ARM64 Laptops | news.ycombinator.com | 2025-07-27
NOTE:
The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars.
The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or
since we started tracking (Dec 2020).
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What AMQP compatibility means for a local Azure emulator
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I've built a virtual museum with nearly every operating system you can think of
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Badger Badger Badger Video Officially Preserved by British Film Institute
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Show HN: BigQuery Emulator – run Google BigQuery locally for tests
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A note from our sponsor - SaaSHub
www.saashub.com | 7 Jun 2026
Index
What are some of the best open-source Emulator projects? This list will help you:
| # | Project | Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | shadPS4 | 31,269 |
| 2 | v86 | 23,105 |
| 3 | ish | 19,939 |
| 4 | rpcs3 | 18,894 |
| 5 | ruffle | 18,139 |
| 6 | OpenEmu | 17,589 |
| 7 | docker-android | 15,213 |
| 8 | dolphin | 15,097 |
| 9 | pcsx2 | 14,919 |
| 10 | xenia | 9,443 |
| 11 | Cemu | 9,425 |
| 12 | Unicorn Engine | 9,003 |
| 13 | Android Debug Database | 8,658 |
| 14 | macintosh.js | 8,465 |
| 15 | azerothcore-wotlk | 8,447 |
| 16 | FEX | 7,551 |
| 17 | mgba | 7,077 |
| 18 | jsnes | 6,387 |
| 19 | Provenance | 6,324 |
| 20 | retrobios | 6,117 |
| 21 | qiling | 5,944 |
| 22 | mininet | 5,795 |
| 23 | box64 | 5,448 |
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