MacVisor vs. Tart

Native GUI library, settings, dashboard, snapshot list, and display windows, plus the mvz CLI.

CLI-first; tart run opens a window for one VM's display, or VNC. No official management GUI.

macOS 14, 15, 26 and 27 from Apple's installers or your own IPSW, with accelerated graphics, and set up for you on macOS 27 (account, SSH and guest agent). Apple allows two macOS VMs at a time.

macOS VMs from an IPSW or prebuilt OCI images, aimed at CI.

Any ARM64 distribution: a signed catalogue of cloud images (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Rocky, Alma, openSUSE, Alpine and more) set up by cloud-init, or any ARM64 ISO. Rosetta runs x86-64 Linux programs.

ARM64 Linux VMs from prebuilt OCI images or an installer ISO.

Windows 11 on ARM, installed unattended from Microsoft's ISO with your account, Remote Desktop, optional SSH, the guest agent, Secure Boot and a TPM 2.0 that BitLocker can seal to. Needs macOS 27.2; no GPU acceleration.

Not supported; the request is open and needs Apple or Microsoft support. An unofficial fork boots Windows 11 on ARM without GPU acceleration, sound, or suspend.

FreeBSD 15.1 and 16.0-CURRENT from FreeBSD's cloud images, with your SSH keys, the guest agent and snapshots. Console and SSH only, with no desktop, shared folders or clipboard.

Not supported. The maintainers' own FreeBSD attempt failed to boot, and no FreeBSD image is offered.

FreeBSD- and Linux-based firewalls and routers, and appliances such as Home Assistant OS, booted as they are from their ARM64 images, with USB passthrough for Zigbee and Z-Wave radios.

Not documented. A workaround swaps a raw disk image into a Linux VM, untested for Home Assistant OS or routers; USB passthrough for Zigbee radios isn't supported.

A signed catalogue of vendor cloud images (Linux and FreeBSD), or your own raw, ASIF or qcow2 image. cloud-init sets up your account, SSH keys, container runtime and home folder share from the New VM form or mvz create.

Cirrus Labs images on ghcr.io (macOS 12 to 26, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora), built with Packer rather than cloud-init. A macOS 27 guest can get its account and SSH on first boot.

Docker, Podman, containerd or k3s, opt-in when you create the VM. The Docker or Podman socket and the k3s kubeconfig reach the Mac with no network setup.

Not part of the VM tool; whatever the pulled image contains.

Installed for you: by cloud-init on Linux, over SSH on macOS 27 and FreeBSD, and by Windows setup. Older macOS and ISO installs use the guest tools disc; appliances can use a QEMU guest agent.

Preinstalled in Cirrus Labs' non-vanilla images; in your own images you install it, for example in a Packer template.

The mvz CLI covers nearly everything the app does, from creating VMs to snapshots, networks, firewall rules and the MCP server, with --json output and documented exit codes.

Comprehensive tart CLI with JSON output; Orchard adds a REST API for clusters.

Export and import of .mvz VM and .mvzt template packages, and import of tart VMs; no OCI registry support.

Push and pull VM images through OCI-compatible registries; stacked disks download only the layers a VM lacks.

Live (with memory) and disk-only snapshots of running VMs for every guest, near-free on APFS; suspend and resume; and shut down or suspend at logout, your choice.

No snapshot manager. tart suspend saves a running VM's state; known-good states are kept as clones or registry images.

Templates and instant linked clones that store only their own changes; every cloud-image VM is a linked clone of its image.

tart clone makes APFS copy-on-write copies; on macOS 27, stacked clones share a read-only base and store only the VM's writes.

Several storage locations on internal, external or network volumes; a running VM moves between them in one step (suspend, move, resume).

VMs live under ~/.tart (or TART_HOME): one location, no migration between volumes. tart export and import move a VM as an archive.

Clipboard, file transfer, port forwards, guest addresses and a clean shutdown over a virtual socket, with no network needed; VirtioFS shared folders, and Rosetta for Linux.

Directory mounts, tart exec and clipboard sharing through the guest agent, SSH, and a Rosetta share for Linux; no file transfer or port tunnel commands.

NAT, bridged (also to a VLAN), and named shared and host-only networks, with up to four adapters per VM; every VM answers as <vm>.mvz.

Per-run modes: shared NAT, bridged, host-only, Softnet, or a socket from another program. No persistent named networks.

Creates 802.1Q VLAN interfaces on the Mac (tags 1-4094) for VMs to bridge to, or for a shared network to use as its uplink.

Tart doesn't create VLAN interfaces and its docs don't mention VLANs; bridging to a VLAN interface made by hand in macOS may work, but isn't documented.

Per-network DHCP with MAC-to-IPv4 reservations, by hand or made for cloud-init VMs automatically (within macOS 27's network limits).

Softnet reserves an address per VM MAC and serves DHCP itself; tart set --mac fixes a MAC, but Tart does not manage reservations.

TCP and UDP forwards on shared networks, reachable from other devices, plus per-VM forwards through the guest agent; Linux VMs forward their listening ports to the Mac automatically.

Softnet exposes TCP ports per VM, and Orchard endpoints forward a VM's services to worker ports; no NAT forwarding rules on a named network.

Allow and deny rules per network (protocol, address range, port), enforced by the Mac's packet filter outside the guest, even with the app closed. IPv4 only.

Softnet filters each VM's IPv4 traffic by CIDR, direction, protocol, and port, changeable while the VM runs. Rules are per VM, not per network, and need root rights.

Per-network switches for DHCP, DNS, NAT44, NAT66 and IPv6 router advertisements, plus the subnet, IPv6 prefix, MTU and uplink.

Per-VM choices (Softnet DHCP and lease time, NAT or host-only, <name>.internal DNS on a Softnet network); no DNS, NAT44, NAT66, or IPv6 RA switches per network.

A built-in MCP server (Tech Preview): Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents use only the VMs you open to them, to run commands, read and write files, take snapshots and roll back, or see the screen. Local only, with every call logged.

No official MCP server or AI-agent integration. Agents can drive the tart CLI and tart exec from a shell; the third-party Tartelette app ships an MCP server.

Per VM: Off (the default), View (state, screenshots, reading files) or Control (power, commands, files, snapshots, keyboard and mouse), set in VM Settings or with mvz set. Agents can't open a VM themselves, delete your snapshots or read stored passwords.

Tart has no MCP server. The third-party Tartelette app has one with per-VM access levels and an audit log; it isn't part of Tart.

AI sandboxes (Tech Preview): coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex run in a disposable Linux or macOS VM with a copy of your project, API keys kept on the Mac and allow-listed internet; you review the diff before it lands.

No AI sandbox feature, but the building blocks exist: disposable clones, tart exec, and Softnet egress rules. Copying the project in and reviewing changes are left to you.

Runs unattended with the app closed: VMs start at login, and High Availability restarts one that crashes. From 27.2.1, a watchdog, health checks and hooks restart VMs that stop responding.

Tart has no autostart, restart on crash, or watchdog. Orchard adds launchd-run workers, a restart policy, and startup scripts; no guest health checks.

Built in from 27.2.1: daily, weekly or on demand, to another drive or a network share, running VMs included, checked by SHA-256 and restorable on any Mac.

No backup feature or schedule. tart export and tart push copy a VM out on demand; scheduling and retention are left to your scripts.

Not available today.

Orchard schedules Tart VMs across a cluster of Apple Silicon hosts, with a REST API and CLI.

Free 30-day trial, no card needed. MacVisor 27 Pro is one-time: $59 for one Mac, $79 for two Macs (launch prices until 1 December 2026, then $69, $99), with every feature and every 27.x update. MacVisor Business is $79 per Mac a year from 3 Macs ($99 from 1 December 2026), with new major versions, email support (first reply within 2 business days, IST) and help deploying through your MDM. Enterprise support by quote.

Free under FSL-1.1-ALv2 (OpenAI, since June 2026): any use except a competing commercial product, and each release becomes Apache 2.0 after two years.