--- title: Catching up with modern developer experiences through... description: Tuist's founder reflects on the high cost and slow innovation of macOS-dependent developer workflows compared to Linux/web ecosystems, where Docker-style... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Catching up with modern developer experiences through macOS virtualization | daily.dev og:description: Tuist's founder reflects on the high cost and slow innovation of macOS-dependent developer workflows compared to Linux/web ecosystems, where Docker-style... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/7Uzom4OyX.png og:image:alt: Catching up with modern developer experiences through macOS virtualization og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Catching up with modern developer experiences through macOS virtualization **[ Tuist ](https://daily.dev/sources/tuist-blog)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Tuist's founder reflects on the high cost and slow innovation of macOS-dependent developer workflows compared to Linux/web ecosystems, where Docker-style virtualization is cheap and ubiquitous. The piece traces how macOS virtualization has historically been proprietary and locked behind CI vendors, but notes emerging open-source efforts like Lume and macvm (plus its fugaci Kubernetes orchestrator) that are commoditizing macOS VMs. It envisions a future where the same virtualization tech powers local dev, CI, and web-triggered workflows interchangeably, using Tuist CLI examples for running xcodebuild locally or remotely, and closes with Tuist's ambition to build this blurred local/remote/web experience for Apple developers. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What open source tools exist for virtualizing macOS for CI or local development? Lume and macvm are two open-source efforts building macOS virtualization technology, aiming to commoditize what was previously proprietary and dominated by companies like Anka. Macvm also develops fugaci, a tool for orchestrating macOS workload distribution using Kubernetes, moving toward a world where an AWS key plus a CI frontend like GitHub Actions or Buildkite is enough to run macOS builds. _daily.dev surfaces emerging tools like these for teams weighing self-hosted versus proprietary macOS CI options._ ### Why is macOS virtualization more expensive and harder than Linux container virtualization for CI? macOS virtual machine images are far heavier than Docker images, so they cannot be lazily pulled and can take minutes to download, unlike Linux containers that cloud providers provision via API in seconds. Historically, accessing Apple hardware required manual data center processes until AWS introduced APIs for spinning up Mac instances, though maintaining warmed pools of Apple hardware remains complex. _Engineers comparing CI runner costs across macOS and Linux can track these infrastructure shifts on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The new Tuist, from build toolchains to bare metal](https://daily.dev/posts/the-new-tuist-from-build-toolchains-to-bare-metal-waw3c6jvd) · Tuist · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Stop Making TUIs](https://daily.dev/posts/stop-making-tuis-m5mybfkns) · Lobsters · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [We rebuilt the Linux microVM stack on Apple Silicon](https://daily.dev/posts/we-rebuilt-the-linux-microvm-stack-on-apple-silicon-2hmxgetth) · Encore · 21 upvotes · 2 comments --- Tags: [#cicd](https://daily.dev/tags/cicd), [#swift](https://daily.dev/tags/swift), [#xcode](https://daily.dev/tags/xcode) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Catching up with modern developer experiences through macOS virtualization","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:23:38.990Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:59:35.762Z","description":"Tuist's founder reflects on the high cost and slow innovation of macOS-dependent developer workflows compared to Linux/web ecosystems, where Docker-style...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7d42340d21146faa6e86f0c5b0b9d5be?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7d42340d21146faa6e86f0c5b0b9d5be?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"\n Tuist\n ","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"\n Tuist\n ","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--3AYDH23h--/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487506/logos/tuist-blog?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tuist-blog"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"cicd,swift,xcode","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"\n Tuist\n ","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tuist-blog"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Catching up with modern developer experiences through macOS virtualization"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/catching-up-with-modern-developer-experiences-through-macos-virtualization-7uzom4oyx#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What open source tools exist for virtualizing macOS for CI or local development?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Lume and macvm are two open-source efforts building macOS virtualization technology, aiming to commoditize what was previously proprietary and dominated by companies like Anka. 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