openMSX vs QEMU

openMSX is a free, open-source emulator for the MSX home computer system, with an aim of 100% accuracy. It emulates almost all MSX, MSX2, MSX2+, and turboR systems, plus some others experimentally. The project lists over 230 machine configurations and over 110 extension hardware configurations. A built-in graphical interface works across supported operating systems. Users can control the emulator with Tcl scripts or a command interface over pipes or a UNIX domain socket, and external applications can connect through that interface. The built-in debugger provides watchpoints, breakpoints, viewers, and real-time data display; save states and a reverse feature support replay or stepping back through time. MIDI connectivity is available through host frameworks on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Downloads include Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android builds, though listed versions differ by platform. Version 20.0 and later requires OpenGL 2 support. Android support is listed only through version 0.15.0, and the default C-BIOS machine does not provide all functionality for a complete MSX machine. Catapult is deprecated; the project recommends its built-in GUI.

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.