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QEMU vs Hyper-V: catalog facts
QEMU	Hyper-V
Free Free and open source, with no paid edition.	Free Included at no extra cost in Windows Pro, Enterprise and Windows Server editions.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows
Emulates whole machines across processor architectures, not just same-architecture VMs Near native performance when paired with KVM or Xen	Built into Windows with nothing extra to buy Type-1 hypervisor with near-native performance
Raw QEMU is a command line tool with a large and unfriendly option surface Cross-architecture emulation is far slower than virtualisation on matching hardware	Not available on Windows Home editions Windows only
Downloadable app	Operating system
Open source	Closed source
License: GPL-2.0	License not stated
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.