86Box
A low-level emulator of vintage IBM PC-compatible hardware for running old DOS and Windows systems.
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About 86Box
86Box emulates IBM PC systems and compatibles from the 1981 IBM PC 5150 up to PCI-based designs, with a focus on accuracy. It emulates processors from the 8086 to the Pentium, along with many video, sound, network, disk and SCSI adapters, and includes machines such as the IBM PS/2 line.
It runs MS-DOS, older Windows versions, OS/2, many Linux distributions, BeOS and NEXTSTEP. MIDI can go to the system synthesizer, FluidSynth or emulated Roland synths. Version 6.0 was released in May 2026, alongside experimental builds.
Strengths
- Accurate low-level emulation of period PC hardware
- Wide range of emulated machines and peripherals
- Interface modelled on mainstream hypervisors
- Active releases, with v6.0 in May 2026
Limitations
- Needs original BIOS ROMs and OS media to be useful
- Low-level emulation needs a fast host CPU
- CPU emulation stops at the Pentium era
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree and open source.
- License
- GPL-2.0
- Developer
- The 86Box contributors
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- Retro PC enthusiasts recreating period-accurate DOS and Windows machines
- Categories
- Virtual machines, Emulators
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to 86Box
Compare allSoftware that can replace 86Box for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Bochs
A portable open source x86 PC emulator that emulates the CPU, common devices and a BIOS.
Bochs emulates x86 CPUs from the 386 to recent x86-64 models rather than stopping at the Pentium era, but it is configured through text files and aimed at OS development.
QEMU
The machine emulator and virtualiser that most of the Linux virtualisation stack is built on.
QEMU emulates whole machines across many processor architectures and reaches near native speed with KVM, but raw QEMU is a command line tool with a large option surface.
v86
An x86 PC emulator that runs operating systems such as Linux and Windows 9x inside a web browser.
v86 runs old x86 systems such as Windows 9x inside a web browser tab with nothing to install, but it is slower than native virtualization and suits lighter systems.
VirtualBox
The free desktop hypervisor most people start with: run Windows, Linux or BSD in a window on the machine you already have.
VirtualBox uses virtualization instead of low-level hardware emulation on the same three host systems and supports old guest systems, though it does not recreate period hardware as 86Box does.
JSLinux
A web page that boots Linux and other operating systems in emulated machines inside the browser.
JSLinux runs emulated machines in the browser with nothing to install, but it offers only a fixed list of prebuilt systems and is not open source.
86Box as an alternative
Listings that name 86Box as an alternative.
DOSBox Staging
Modern continuation of DOSBox for running DOS games and software.
86Box emulates period PC hardware at a low level for accurate DOS and Windows machines, but needs original BIOS ROMs, OS media and a fast host CPU.
DOSBox-X
A DOSBox fork that also runs Windows 3.x, 95, 98 and Me, plus Japanese PC-98 software.
86Box emulates real vintage PC hardware at a low level for DOS and Windows systems, needing original BIOS ROMs and a fast host CPU, and stops at the Pentium era.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
