Looking for a Tart alternative
If you found Tart through macOS CI and then wanted to click around a machine, you have found the gap. It is a deliberate one on Tart's side.
First: do not switch if this is you
You run macOS CI. Pulling an image from a registry and running it is a loop Tart is genuinely better at than 1VMTool, and it is deployed widely for exactly that. If you are a CI engineer, stay.
1VMTool is an early product. It is deliberately narrower than Tart, and a narrower tool is only an upgrade when the part it does well is the part you need.
What frustrates people about Tart
- There is no GUI by design — no machine library, no snapshot tree, no storage view.
- No Windows guests, because it stays inside Virtualization.framework's device model.
- Ownership moved to OpenAI in 2026 and the license settled into Fair Source — clearer terms, but the original team moved on and long-term maintenance under the new owner is unproven.
- macOS guest disk resizing and recovery-partition handling still involve documented rituals that are fine for CI images and tedious for a desktop machine.
What you gain by moving
- You want a GUI: a machine library, a snapshot tree, a console window and host metering.
- You want Windows on ARM, which Tart does not offer.
- You want a branching snapshot tree and rollback mode rather than clone-as-snapshot.
- You want licensing you do not have to re-check before rolling it out.
How they actually differ
| 1VMTool | Tart | |
|---|---|---|
| Snapshot mechanism | APFS clone with a branching snapshot tree, restore and rollback mode. | Clone is the snapshot — the same APFS primitive, without a snapshot tree. |
| Interface | GUI and CLI as peers. | CLI only, and the best in this niche. |
| CI workflow | No image registry integration. | OCI registries as image storage, plus Packer and Orchard. |
| Windows guests | Experimental first-party engine. | None. |
| macOS guests | Supported. | Supported, and the tool of choice for CI images. |
| Bundled dependencies | None. | None. |
| License clarity | Commercial, one-time. | Fair Source (FSL-1.1-ALv2) under OpenAI — settled terms, unproven maintenance. |
| Price on one Mac | One-time purchase. | Free. |
Highlighted cells mark the stronger side of each row. Competitor details checked September 2026 against vendor documentation — pricing and features move, so verify anything decision-critical at the source.
Moving across
- Keep Tart installed. There is no importer — machine formats do not transfer — so treat this as running both for a while rather than a migration.
- Recreate one machine you actually use in 1VMTool and work in it for a week. One real machine tells you more than a checklist.
- Take a safe point as soon as it is set up, then deliberately break something and restore it. That loop is the reason to switch; test it early.
- Only then decide. If the loop did not change how you work, the honest answer is to stay on Tart.
Frequently asked questions
Tart already does instant APFS clones — why 1VMTool?
The same disk primitive, a different product. Tart is CI and OCI images. 1VMTool is a desktop app with a snapshot tree, rollback mode, host metering and a Windows engine. If you live in macOS CI runners, stay on Tart.
Can Tart run Windows 11 on ARM?
No. It stays within Virtualization.framework's device model, and the maintainers have said so. 1VMTool added a second engine specifically to get past that limit.
Is Tart still free after the ownership change?
For non-competing use, yes — it is now Fair Source (FSL-1.1-ALv2) under OpenAI and converts to Apache 2.0. The old Cirrus Labs core-count tiers are no longer the stated license, though the public licensing page still describes them, so read the current text before a wide rollout.
See whether the reset loop changes anything
Every screen states its limits before you commit, so it does not take long to find out.