Every system you need,
in one library.
Virtual machines built for Apple silicon and AI agents: macOS, Windows and Linux in a library that is lightweight, native and smooth. Start one from the catalog, snapshot it in seconds, close its window and find it where you left it — and let an agent run commands in it, or work at its screen.
Ten days to try, with nothing held back. A Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) and macOS 14 Sonoma or later; signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens without warnings.
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macOS4 cores · 8 GB · 80 GB
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Windows 114 cores · 4 GB · 64 GB
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Ubuntu Server 26.042 cores · 4 GB · 32 GB
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Fedora 444 cores · 8 GB · 64 GB
An illustration · the library · macOS, Windows and Linux side by side
Download for macOS
One disk image. Open it, drag Elyra VM to Applications. The build is signed with a Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and the checksum is beside it so you can check what you got. After that, Elyra VM updates itself: it looks for a newer version once a day, and checks that it is signed by its developer before putting it in place.
macOS · Apple Silicon
elyravm-0.31.1-arm64.dmg
15.4 MB
sha256 3cf7147272e5d1653b45a2f7db6d01fa06933c7ba3936e7c0c2bc5249210ed4f
Apple silicon only. Elyra VM runs on Apple's Virtualization and Hypervisor frameworks, which are for Apple silicon, and Linux guests need ARM64 (aarch64): Intel systems don't run. What it does not do yet is written down in Limitations, not left for you to find.
A machine you can
throw away, and keep.
A VM is where you try the thing you would not try on your own Mac: the beta, the other system, the script an agent wrote. Elyra VM makes that cheap — a clone or a snapshot costs nothing until it changes — and keeps it within reach, from the library, the command line or an agent.
macOS, Linux and Windows
macOS from an IPSW, or the newest from Apple, downloaded once. Linux for ARM64 on Apple's Virtualization framework. Windows 11 for Arm on Elyra VM's own engine on Apple's Hypervisor framework, with the firmware, TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot Windows 11 asks for; Setup runs from Microsoft's ISO as on a PC, and Windows needs macOS 15 or later. Each VM runs as a process of its own, with its own window and Dock icon, and goes on running when the library closes.
A catalog
The newest macOS, Ubuntu 26.04 and Fedora 44 for ARM64, looked up and downloaded once with resume. Six systems are set up for you, Ubuntu Server, Fedora Cloud and Debian, as servers and as desktops: a server is set up at its first boot with your user and your SSH keys, a desktop gets GNOME and a browser, with you logged in by itself. Or start from an IPSW, an ISO or a disk image of your own.
Snapshots in seconds
A snapshot saves a VM as it is, running or not, to roll back to in seconds. It takes space only as the VM changes after it: its disk is an APFS clone that shares every block with the VM's until one of them writes. Duplicate works the same way, a clone that is instant and takes no space until one of the two changes, with a new id, MAC address and machine identity.
Closing the window suspends
Close a VM's window and it is suspended, not shut down. Starting it again restores it, typically in a few seconds, where you left it. Pause freezes a VM in place and resumes at once; suspend saves it to its folder and carries on where it was. A VM keeps running when you quit the library, since every VM is its own process, and a log out, restart or shut down of the Mac waits until the VM is saved, then goes on.
Elyra VM Tools
A small agent that runs in a guest. It brings commands and a terminal from the Mac, elyravm exec and elyravm shell, the clipboard both ways, shared folders, files dropped on the window and elyravm cp, and the guest's clock set when it starts and resumes. Elyra VM updates the agent itself when a newer one comes with the app.
Built for AI agents
elyravm mcp is a Model Context Protocol server: an agent that speaks MCP, Claude Code, Claude Desktop and others, can run your VMs and work in them. It runs on your Mac, and a guest needs nothing more than Elyra VM Tools. With screenshot and the keyboard and pointer tools, an agent works at a VM's screen as a person would. The screenshot is taken in the guest, once a user is logged in with Elyra VM Tools; a Linux VM shown through Apple's display view takes the keyboard and pointer, but its screen can't be read.
From Parallels
Import a VM or Disk Image brings a Parallels Desktop VM over: choose its .pvm, and it keeps its name, system, processors and memory, and its disk as it is now, Parallels snapshots included, converted to Elyra VM's sparse disk. The Parallels VM is left as it was. For now it takes Linux VMs only, and not disks split into parts.
The command line
The library has a command line beside it: elyravm list, status, start, stop, snapshot, import, exec, shell, cp and more, many with --json for scripts. A VM is an .elyravm bundle, a folder with its sparse disk and its settings, and each running VM listens on a control socket of its own.
Sound, microphone and camera in Windows
Windows has a USB sound device of Elyra VM's: what it plays comes out of the Mac's speakers. With the microphone allowed in the VM's settings it hears the Mac's microphone, and with the camera allowed it sees the Mac's camera as a USB webcam; macOS asks you once for each. Apple's framework has no camera for VMs, so macOS and Linux guests have none.
What it does not do yet
Windows guests have no 3D graphics, and can't use the Mac's own USB devices. Linux guests need ARM64, and 3D for Linux needs macOS 27. Bridged networking acts as Shared, until Apple grants the entitlement it needs. And Windows needs a licence of your own: Elyra VM doesn't sell or activate Windows. Microsoft names Parallels Desktop as its authorized way to run Windows 11 for Arm on Apple silicon; Elyra VM, like VMware Fusion and UTM, runs it outside that authorization. The rest is in Limitations.
Ten days to try.
Then one licence, yours to keep.
Elyra VM runs for 10 days from the day you first use it on a Mac, with nothing held back. The library says how many days are left. When the trial is over, VMs don't start until a licence is entered; your VMs, their settings and snapshots stay as they are.
A licence is one payment, not a subscription, for a year of updates and support. What is released during that year is yours to keep, and keeps running after it. To have the versions released later, renew for another year: the same key, with its last day moved on, and Elyra VM learns of it by itself within a day.
A licence for Elyra VM
$39 one-time · 2 Macs · a year of updates and supportPay once and a licence key is emailed to you. In Elyra VM, choose Elyra VM › Licence…, paste the key and press Activate: Elyra VM asks elyracode.com once to put this Mac on the licence, and after that it doesn't need the Internet to run. You also get an account page with the key and the Macs it is on.
Card payment by Stripe. No account is needed to buy; one is created for you so the key is never lost. Questions or a refund — reply to the licence email.
- On 2 Macs
- To use it on a third, deactivate it on one of the two (Licence… › Deactivate), or remove that Mac under your licences here.
- Checked where
- Once online, to put a Mac on the licence; then on the Mac itself, against an activation signed by the shop for that Mac.
- After the year
- Nothing stops. The versions you have keep running; a newer one shows Renew instead of Install.
Try it on another system,
not on yours.
Download Elyra VM, start a VM from the catalog, and take a snapshot before you try the thing you were not sure about. Ten days, every feature, nothing to sign up for.