Bottles vs Boxedwine

Bottles manages Windows prefixes, called bottles, to run Windows applications and games on Linux through compatibility-layer runners. It offers Gaming, Application, and Custom environments, plus Wine and Proton runners such as Soda, Caffe, Vaniglia, and CrossOver builds. Installers apply rules to set up programs, while a dependency manager uses a community-driven repository of manifests. Users can manage graphics components including DXVK, VKD3D, DXVK-NVAPI, and LatencyFleX. The community App Store provides Windows application installers with compatibility grades from Bronze through Platinum. Bottles also lists backups, versioning, duplication, and importing bottles from other managers. The project recommends Flatpak: it bundles required dependencies and is described as the most supported and tested release, as well as the only fully sandboxed package. Bottles supports Linux and macOS and is free software. Connection-dependent features do not work offline. The project also warns that exposing the system home directory to a runner breaks the Flatpak sandbox and can put personal files at risk.

Boxedwine is an emulator for running 16-bit and 32-bit Windows applications on Windows, Mac, Linux, and in a browser. It runs a 32-bit version of Wine while emulating the Linux kernel and CPU, and is released under the GNU General Public License v2. The browser build uses Emscripten, including WebAssembly and asm.js. Boxedwine supports multiple Wine versions from 1.6 to Wine 5.0. Its web version uses memory storage by default, so changes to d:/ are discarded when the browser tab closes. Users can configure Dropbox storage or use local storage, whose limits depend on the browser and operating system. The web build can accept a dropped directory to list executable files and can be configured with URL parameters. Documentation warns that on-demand loading of large files can block the interface or potentially crash the emulator, and requires server range-request support. The site also provides online demos for selected applications and games, including AbiWord, Age of Empires, and Caesar III, plus user and developer documentation.