# KhronosGroup/MoltenVK

MoltenVK is a Vulkan Portability implementation. It layers a subset of the high-performance, industry-standard Vulkan graphics and compute API over Apple's Metal graphics framework, enabling Vulkan applications to run on macOS, iOS and tvOS.

Repository: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/moltenvk
Language: Objective-C++
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-25T23:02:32+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 97/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 94, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3221, "days_push": 8, "days_rel": 40, "gap_med": 20, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 5804, forks 543 (observed 2026-08-28T04:09:29.768484+00:00)

## What it is
MoltenVK is a layered implementation of the Vulkan 1.4 graphics and compute API built on top of Apple's Metal framework, enabling Vulkan applications to run on macOS, iOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It includes a shader converter that translates SPIR-V shaders to Metal Shading Language, using only public APIs so apps remain App Store compatible.

## Use cases
- run vulkan games on macos
- port vulkan application to ios
- develop cross-platform graphics app for apple platforms
- convert spir-v shaders to metal shading language
- run vulkan compute workloads on apple silicon
- ship vulkan app on the app store

## When to choose
- you need to run existing Vulkan code on macOS, iOS, tvOS, or visionOS
- you want a cross-platform graphics codebase that includes Apple platforms
- you need App Store-compatible Vulkan support without private APIs
- you target Apple Silicon with Vulkan compute

## When to avoid
- you are writing a Metal-native app and don't need Vulkan
- you require full 100% Vulkan conformance or rarely used extensions
- you target only non-Apple platforms
- you need Vulkan on Linux or Windows

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: graphics, game-engine, compiler
- domain: graphics, cross-platform, apple-ecosystem
- platform: cpp, cross-platform
- tags: vulkan, metal, shader-conversion, spir-v, api-translation-layer, apple-silicon, game-development, macos, ios

## Member repositories
- KhronosGroup/MoltenVK (main) score 97

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:29.768484+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:52:44.816038+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK (fetched 2026-08-28T04:09:29.768484+00:00, sha 74d178466c58)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.