SwiftVM
Virtual machines that live in your menu bar.
Native macOS app for running macOS, Linux, and Windows 11 for Arm virtual machines.
brew install --cask swiftvm-app/tap/swiftvm
Free and open source · macOS 27 or newer, on Apple silicon
What SwiftVM does
Guests that set themselves up, and everything you need to work with them.
macOS guests
SwiftVM installs macOS from Apple and, from macOS 27 on, sets it up for you. No setup assistant to click through.
Linux guests
Ubuntu and Debian from a ready-made image, with automatic setup. Or install another ARM64 distribution from its installer disc.
SSH by name
Enable SSH integration and run ssh web-server from your Mac, without looking up addresses.
Snapshots and duplicates
Keep a machine as it is, and come back to it later. On the same APFS volume, duplicates share unchanged disk blocks.
Suspend and resume
Save a machine's memory to disk and free your Mac's. It continues where it was the next time you start it.
Shared folders and clipboard
Open folders of your Mac in the guest, and copy and paste between the two.
Networking
Reach guests on SwiftVM's shared network, with reserved addresses and port forwarding for their services.
USB devices and disk images
Hand a physical USB device to a running macOS or Linux guest. Attach disc and disk images in any guest.
Command line
Create and manage machines, run guest commands, and automate their screens with swiftvm.
Or drive it from a terminal
The app owns the machines and swiftvm drives the app, so the panel and the terminal never disagree.
How it is built
Runs as your Mac user
macOS and Linux guests use Apple's Virtualization framework. Windows uses bundled QEMU. Both run without root privileges on your Mac.
A machine is a folder
Its settings, disk, firmware, and snapshots live in one .swiftvm package. Copies on the same APFS volume share unchanged blocks.
Open source
Written in Swift and released under the Apache-2.0 license. Read the technical guide, or build it yourself.
Install SwiftVM
SwiftVM runs on macOS 27 or newer, on Apple silicon.
brew install --cask swiftvm-app/tap/swiftvm
Or download the disk image from the latest release.