MAME

MAME is ranked #4 of 54 in multi-system emulators on The Geeks Club. It runs on Android, Linux, macOS, Windows. There is a free plan.

MAME plans and pricing

All plans

MAME Free GPL-2.0 or later; ROMs and copyrighted software are generally not included mamedev.org · 30 Sept 2026

Compared on multi-system emulators

Free plan: Yes
Dreamcast BIOS required: Yes

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7.5 Virtual Jaguar Free plan

7.4 RetroArch Free plan

7.3 FinalBurn Neo Free plan

7.2 SkyEmu Free plan

7.2 VICE Free plan

7.1 Emulicious Free plan

MAME

Purpose: MAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework intended to preserve software history by documenting hardware and how it functions.
Systems covered: MAME documents arcade games as well as a wide variety of mostly vintage computers, video game consoles, and calculators.
License: The project as a whole is distributed under GPL-2.0, and the site says over 90% of its files, including core files, are under BSD-3-Clause.
Windows downloads: The official release page offers Windows x64 and Arm64 binary packages; both require Windows 10 or later.
Other platforms: The MAMEDEV wiki lists macOS and Linux among the non-Windows platforms and provides platform build instructions.
Debugger: MAME includes an interactive low-level debugger for diagnosing emulation issues, developing software for vintage systems, and examining how software works.
Lua scripting: MAME's Lua interface can inspect and manipulate device state, access CPU registers, read and write memory, and draw graphical overlays.
Lua API limitation: The Lua API is not declared stable and may change without prior notice.
Plugins: MAME supports plugins for tasks including communicating with external programs, displaying game structures, providing alternate interfaces, and testing emulation.
Integration: Included plugins include Discord Presence and a GDB Stub.
Support: The MAMEDEV forums include discussion for MAME emulation, compilation, and general help.
Intended users: The debugger documentation identifies diagnosing emulation, developing vintage-system software, creating cheats, ROM hacking, and investigating software behavior as use cases.
What it does: MAME is a multi-purpose emulation framework that documents and reproduces the inner components of arcade machines, computers, consoles, calculators and other electronic amusement machines.
Preservation purpose: The project’s primary purpose is to preserve decades of arcade, computer and console history.
Price from: Free

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Where it ranks on The Geeks Club

Best Multi-System Emulators in 2026#4 of 54
Best Emulator Software in 2026#8 of 37
Best TurboGrafx-16 Emulators in 2026#3 of 32
Best Game Gear Emulators in 2026#6 of 30
Best Sega Genesis Emulators in 2026#4 of 29
Best Sega CD Emulators in 2026#3 of 19
Best Dreamcast Emulators in 2026#3 of 9

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Sources

mamedev.org· checked 30 Sept 2026
mamedev.org/release.php· checked 30 Sept 2026
wiki.mamedev.org/index.php/SDL_Supported_Platforms· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/debugger/index.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/luascript/index.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/plugins/index.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
forum.mamedev.org· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/initialsetup/mameintro.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
mamedev.org/release.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/commandline/commandline-all.html· checked 30 Sept 2026
docs.mamedev.org/security.html· checked 30 Sept 2026