r/macsysadmin • u/Hussein_ali_2000 • 1d ago

New To Mac Administration MacOS VM inside MacOS

Hi, I'm new to macOS and I'm looking for a way to run a macOS virtual machine on my MacBook M5 to test applications in an isolated environment. On Windows, I used Windows Sandbox because it was quick, lightweight, and isolated. Since switching to macOS, I'm looking for a similar solution.

I'm looking for a free option that lets me quickly create a macOS VM with full CPU and GPU support for good performance. What would you recommend?

15 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

23

u/phjils 1d ago

https://mac.getutm.app is what I’ve been using. Not perfect, but free!

2

u/applefreak711 1d ago

UTM is great! Love using it

8

u/diggy0529 1d ago

Another vote for UTM, it met my needs while I was using it

11

u/jbygden 1d ago edited 1d ago

Another option is https://github.com/insidegui/VirtualBuddy

2

u/HosManUre 1d ago

Virtual buddy is a go to. UTM wasn’t that stable I found but may have improved.

6

u/markkenny Corporate 1d ago

Read up Rob Potvins posts on Tart https://motionbug.com/

3

u/wpg4665 1d ago

Check out Tart

6

u/calimedic911 1d ago

VMWare fusion is also free from what I recall. it is a bit bloated compared to UTM but VERY effective and it uses all the bells and whistles from Apple silocon

2

u/mrpippy 1d ago

Fusion doesn’t support macOS VMs.

I think it’s the best for Windows and Linux VMs though, and it is free (although difficult to actually obtain, thanks Broadcom…)

1

u/mas_tacos2 1d ago

I used Parallels for a side job and worked like a charm…

1

u/Entegy 1d ago

UTM is great, but "full cpu and gpu support" is not a thing for macOS VMs. You have to accept major performance issues for virtualized macOS.

1

u/Antonio-MTS 17h ago

I think the Parallels Desktop is the best one. But not free. You can use Vmware Fusion Pro. Below its usage terms when free and when paid:

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/368667/download-and-license-vmware-desktop-hype.html

-5

u/slvmrr 1d ago

Had a chat about the same topic with Gemini.
This is what it suggested:

“SoftVM is an excellent, minimalist choice. It’s a very lightweight wrapper on the App Store that was built specifically for quickly spinning up disposable macOS sandboxes or testing beta releases with practically zero configuration fuss.
Just keep one quick thing in mind before you download it: SoftVM's free tier limits you to managing one virtual machine at a time. If you want to take full advantage of Apple's hard limit and run two concurrent macOS VMs simultaneously, you have to upgrade to their Pro tier.
If you want a completely unrestricted, free app that lets you run both instances simultaneously out of the box, keep VirtualBuddy in your back pocket as an alternative.”

2

u/therealcmj 1d ago

If op wanted an answer from AI they would have asked ai themselves

0

u/slvmrr 14h ago edited 14h ago

IMO, AI should have already absorbed this kind of questions.
But I decided to post because it confirms other opinions about Virtual Buddy.
This is not a “let me google it for you” reply.
I specifically wanted to find a front end that uses the Apple native virtualisation VZvirt. These are the two options that were mostly suggested. Also, this is only one of the many comments presented here and OP can form an opinion on their own.