I’m new to Android development and I’m curious if anyone has successfully run a virtual machine on their Android phone. How did it perform? Any recommendations or tips for installing a VM on Android? Also, what device did you use, and what was your overall experience? Appreciate any feedback!
So, I’ve spent some time tinkering with this out of curiosity—and yeah, running virtual machines on Android is doable, but it’s not always smooth sailing. If you’re just exploring Linux environments, apps like UserLAnd or Termux are a great starting point.
They run in a chroot rather than true virtualization, so they’re a bit lighter. Still, the overall experience really depends on your phone’s specs. On my Pixel 6, things were fairly responsive, but when I tried the same setup on a budget device with 4GB RAM… it was lag city. Long story short: doable, fun for light use, but expect limits.
Totally agree with @prynka.chatterjee here. I’ve dabbled quite a bit with running virtual machines on Android, especially using QEMU and Limbo PC Emulator. These let you go beyond chroot environments and actually emulate full systems—but yeah, there’s a trade-off in performance.
I tried booting a minimal Linux distro on my Galaxy Note 10 and it handled basic tasks just fine, but anything heavier started to drag. My advice? Stick to lightweight distros, and if you’ve got less than 6GB of RAM, it might not be worth the hassle. It’s great for experimentation, just not for heavy lifting.
I’ll add on to what both of you said—after messing around with running virtual machines on Android for dev-related stuff, I realized it’s more about managing expectations.
On my OnePlus 9 Pro, I got QEMU running with a trimmed-down Debian image. With some tweaks (like limiting CPU cores and RAM), it ran decently enough for basic dev tasks. But let’s be real—it’s nowhere near the desktop experience. Android just isn’t optimized for heavy virtualization. That said, if you’re into learning or want a mini dev lab on the go, it’s surprisingly effective with the right setup.