# qemu/qemu

Official QEMU mirror. Please see https://www.qemu.org/contribute/ for how to submit changes to QEMU. Pull Requests are disabled. Please only use release tarballs from the QEMU website.

Repository: https://github.com/qemu/qemu
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/qemu
Homepage: http://www.qemu.org
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: emulation, qemu, virtualization
Last push: 2026-08-26T20:46:11+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 77/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5135, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 13632, forks 7111 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:04.440444+00:00)

## What it is
QEMU is a generic open-source machine emulator and virtualizer written in C. It can emulate complete machines in software via dynamic translation, run cross-architecture binaries via user-mode emulation, and act as a hypervisor backend for KVM and Xen with near-native performance.

## Use cases
- run an ARM operating system on an x86_64 PC
- spin up KVM virtual machines with emulated hardware
- run Linux binaries compiled for PPC64 on an x86_64 host
- test embedded firmware for boards like the i.MX8MP EVK or AST2700
- provide virtual machines to OpenStack or virt-manager via libvirt
- cross-compile and test software for other architectures without real hardware

## When to choose
- you need to emulate a full machine or foreign architecture in software
- you want a stable, mature virtualization backend for KVM/Xen
- you need to run or test OS images for boards you don't physically own
- you want user-mode cross-architecture binary execution on Linux/BSD

## When to avoid
- you only need lightweight containerization of Linux workloads rather than full machine emulation
- you need a simple desktop VM manager rather than a low-level emulator (use virt-manager or GNOME Boxes on top of QEMU)
- you require maximum guest performance without hardware virtualization support, since pure TCG emulation is slower

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: simulation, developer-tools, cli, security
- domain: operating-systems, developer-tools, embedded-systems, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cross-platform, cli
- tags: emulation, virtualization, kvm, xen, dynamic-translation, system-emulator, user-mode-emulation, machine-emulator, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- qemu/qemu (main) score 77

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:04.440444+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 2026-08-29T17:13:09.092166+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/qemu/qemu (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:04.440444+00:00, sha 6472a5048572)
  - homepage: http://www.qemu.org (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.624184+00:00, sha df6c19f9bdb0)
  - site_page: https://www.qemu.org/documentation (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.628064+00:00, sha bb10863de5ba)
  - site_page: https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/11.1 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.630958+00:00, sha 3f54bbec2270)
  - site_page: https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/11.0 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.633633+00:00, sha e5b2ee1e7cd6)
  - site_page: https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/10.2 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.636015+00:00, sha c81662fd9bfd)
  - site_page: https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/10.1 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.637998+00:00, sha 47f66cc61044)
  - site_page: https://wiki.qemu.org/ChangeLog/10.0 (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.640815+00:00, sha 46b2ed8e7cb1)
  - site_page: https://download.qemu.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:07:56.643290+00:00, sha 337ce7fd1123)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.