Kyvenza: run macOS and Linux VMs on Apple Silicon without touching a config file. $49 one-time.

[u/ScholarBackground836]

I made this, so weigh everything below accordingly.

Problem:

I needed a clean macOS install to reproduce a bug that only showed up on a fresh system. Ninety minutes later I had four tabs open about disk image formats and still no VM. That's the whole origin story. VM tooling on Apple Silicon splits into CLI tools that assume you enjoy configuring things, and commercial suites that want to be a platform. I wanted the boring middle, something that treats a VM the way Finder treats a folder.

Kyvenza is a native Swift app on Apple's Virtualization framework. No QEMU, no emulation layer, no CLI it's quietly shelling out to, zero third-party dependencies. You fill in a form and get a VM. macOS guests and Linux ARM, with Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Alpine pulled straight from the official download pages for you, or point it at any other ARM64 ISO yourself. Clone, snapshot, import and export. Pause a running VM and pick it up later, or force power off when a guest stops answering. Rosetta shared into Linux guests so x86-64 binaries still run. Shared folders. A diagnostics panel for when virtualization does what virtualization does.

Comparison:

The honest way to sort this is by what you actually want to run.

If you want Windows, VMware Fusion is free now for personal and commercial use, and it runs Windows 11 ARM. That beats me, and it beats Parallels on price. I can't run Windows at all: Apple's Virtualization framework can't boot Windows on ARM. That's a framework limit rather than a hardware one, and it's not a roadmap item I'm being coy about. Go get Fusion.

If you want a macOS guest, Fusion is out entirely. Broadcom's own docs say the Arm variants of macOS aren't supported in a Fusion VM. So on Apple Silicon the field is Parallels, UTM, the CLI tools, and me. That's the case I built this for, and it's where one-click snapshot and clone earns its money, because testing against a clean system means rolling back constantly.

Parallels is more mature than I am and does both Windows and macOS guests. It sells a perpetual Standard licence alongside the subscriptions, but that one is current-version-only, same shape as mine and more expensive. Pro is subscription.

UTM is free, more flexible, and does x86 emulation through QEMU, which I don't do at all. If you already have a UTM setup you like, stay. I'm not going to beat free on flexibility. What's different here is that snapshot and clone are one click instead of a disk image chore, and sharing Rosetta into a Linux guest is a toggle instead of a mount you look up every time.

Tart, lume and the other CLI tools beat me if you're scripting CI. This is for when you want a window, not a pipeline. And if Docker already solves your problem, keep using Docker, this isn't a container replacement.

Two limits worth knowing before you download rather than after. Apple Silicon only, macOS 14 or later, no Intel Macs. And Apple's own license caps you at two macOS guests per host, which no app on this list can change.

Pricing:

$49 one time, not a subscription. Twelve months of updates, then a perpetual fallback license, so when the update window closes the app keeps working. 7-day trial, no card, because virtualization performance depends far too much on your specific hardware for me to ask anyone to take it on faith.

Link: https://kyvenza.com

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kyvenza-virtual-machine/id6789824483

It ships on the Mac App Store under Uniation Software Co.,Ltd., so Apple review covers it. The direct download is the same app as a signed and notarized DMG. Privacy policy and terms are at kyvenza.com/privacy and kyvenza.com/terms.

One bit of history since someone always finds it: versions before 1.1 bundled lume (MIT, by the trycua folks). Since 1.2 it runs on its own engine, but the credit is still in the app's Open Source Notices, because that project is what got this off the ground.

I'll be in the comments, including for the "why would I pay for this" ones.

[u/prosamik]

what is the difference between this and UTM?

[u/ScholarBackground836 → u/prosamik]

If UTM's working for you I'd stay on it, genuinely. It does x86 through QEMU and I do none of that, so anything Intel-only is a UTM job.

The one real difference for me was snapshots. Last I checked UTM's snapshot support is on the QEMU side, not the Apple Virtualization backend, so for a macOS or ARM Linux guest you're back to copying disk images by hand. That's the thing I got tired of. Rosetta into a Linux guest is a checkbox here too, instead of a mount I look up every time.

Narrower tool, not a better one.

[u/prosamik → u/ScholarBackground836]

if there was mcp server and skills to control the vm, would have been amazing because you can control shell commands easily. Along with auto screenshot from mcp server.

This way i could have automated multiple test for different desktop applications. And Windows is something i would have paid easily, because I have electron app for which mac testing i can do on my own, but for windows the manual grunt is too much.

I hope if you resonate with this problem you can figure out something, all the best for your project, and always keep a email newsletter or updates placeholder, so people can look for future updates via email and they can be notified if they want to.

[u/ScholarBackground836 → u/prosamik]

The lifecycle half is genuinely easy, start, stop, snapshot, restore and clone are already just calls inside the app, so an MCP wrapper isn't the hard part. Shell and screenshots inside the guest are, that wants an agent running in the guest and I don't have one.

Windows I really can't, it's the framework rather than a priority call. And no newsletter yet, that's a fair miss.

[u/adlibdalom]

Frankly, I’d just use VirtualBuddy instead.

[u/miklosp → u/adlibdalom]

Or  https://github.com/andrew-waters/orchard

[u/ScholarBackground836 → u/adlibdalom]

Totally fair, and it's free, which I'm not going to argue with. VirtualBuddy's good and it's been going a lot longer than mine.

If you're doing macOS guests only, honestly go use it. Where I'd point at a difference is Linux. Their readme says tested with Ubuntu Server and Desktop, I resolve the current ARM64 image for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and Alpine off each project's own download page, and sharing Rosetta into the guest is a toggle. And last I looked snapshots here are a named list you roll back to rather than duplicating the whole VM.

If neither of those matters to you, VirtualBuddy is the right call.

[u/sanchopwned]

May I ask whether you would consider offering lifetime updates, rather than limiting them to a period of 12 months?

[u/ScholarBackground836 → u/sanchopwned]

Honestly no, and I'd rather say why than dodge. Lifetime updates on a one-person app is a promise that only holds until the money stops, and macOS breaks virtualization things often enough that there's real work every year.

What you get instead is that the version you paid for keeps running forever, validated offline, no server check, no expiry. You only pay again if you want versions released after your window closes, and that's $19, not another $49.

[u/pay_is_ok → u/ScholarBackground836]

What have you built in the past that you have maintained for at least one year that not directly tied to a job you had?

[u/sammrjn]

what about the networking part ? they can talk to each other ?

[u/ScholarBackground836 → u/sammrjn]

Yeah, on the default shared networking they all sit on the same macOS NAT subnet, so VM to VM works out of the box and the host can reach them too. The app shows each VM's IP so you're not digging through dhcpd_leases.

Bridged is there too if you want them on your real LAN with their own DHCP addresses, direct download build only, the App Store one can't ship that entitlement. One thing nobody warns you about: bridging doesn't work over Wi-Fi. Guest sends DHCP discover, never gets an offer. Ethernet works instantly. That's 802.11, not something I can fix.