Multipass vs QEMU

Multipass runs cloud-style virtual machines on Linux, macOS, and Windows workstations. It is intended for prototyping cloud deployments locally and creating customized Linux development environments. Instances can use cloud-init metadata, including custom definitions for configured servers, and local workflows can model deployments for AWS, Azure, Google, IBM, and Oracle. Multipass fetches Ubuntu images from Canonical and offers a growing catalogue of images with pre-installed applications. Users can share host files and folders with instances; the primary instance integrates with the native filesystem and has dedicated hot-key access. Both command-line and graphical interfaces are available, and the documentation covers Windows Terminal integration and running Docker containers in an instance. Host hypervisors are Host Compute System on Windows, Apple Virtualization on macOS, and QEMU on Linux. The product is free; the listed plan costs nothing, with host requirements varying by operating system. Anyone with access to the Multipass daemon socket can fully control the software, including mounting host filesystems and changing instance security features. Canonical advises limiting daemon access to trusted users. Its access controls begin with group membership and can later use a user TLS certificate.

QEMU is a free, open-source machine emulator and virtualizer. System emulation models an entire machine, including its CPU, memory and devices, so it can run a guest operating system. User-mode emulation runs processes built for one CPU architecture on another. The package also includes qemu-img, a command-line utility for creating, converting and modifying disk images. QEMU can work with KVM, Xen and Hypervisor.Framework so guests can run directly on the host CPU. Supported build platforms include Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Windows. Windows support is limited to 64-bit, while macOS requires the newest version currently available; support for the prior version is eventually dropped. For complex networking and storage configurations, the project recommends management tools such as virt-manager. Its security guidance distinguishes virtualization with an accelerator and listed machine type from TCG non-virtualization use, which does not provide guest-isolation or security guarantees. QEMU is released under GNU GPL version 2, with some components under specific licenses.