Amiga 500 ESP32 vs Meta Amiga Emulator
Amiga 500 ESP32
github.comMeta Amiga Emulator
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Amiga 500 ESP32 | Meta Amiga Emulator |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Amiga Emulators | 7.6 (#11) | 8.4 (#2) |
| License | The original emulator code is under the MIT License, which does not cover the Musashi core or Amiga ROMs and commercial software. | The project is licensed under GNU GPL version 3 or later. |
| Purpose | Amiga 500 emulator running on ESP32-S3 hardware, with a PC build for development. | Meta Amiga is a portable, cycle-accurate Commodore Amiga emulator project for macOS, Linux and Windows. |
Plans
In their own words
Amiga 500 ESP32
Amiga 500 ESP32 has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
Meta Amiga Emulator
Meta Amiga Emulator is a free, open-source project intended to emulate Commodore Amiga systems on macOS, Linux, and Windows. Its planned machine range includes A1000, A500, A500+, A600, A1200, A2000, A3000, A4000, CDTV, and CD32 systems. The specification covers floppy, hard disk, directory-mapped, and CD media, with formats including ADF, Extended ADF, ADZ, DMS, SCP, KryoFlux raw, HDF, and ISO/CUE/CHD. IPF/CAPS support is optional and requires the non-free capsimage library.
The project is written from scratch in C++23 and licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. Kickstart ROMs are not included; the project says it can load ROMs owned by the user and includes AROS as a fallback. However, it is currently pre-alpha and there is no emulator to run. The repository contains design, architecture, build work, and CI. Building the current core requires CMake 3.28 or newer, Ninja, and a supported C++23 compiler, and still does not produce a runnable emulator.