Run Emacs in the Browser with v86
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HN · launched Mar 21, 2026 · 5 upvotes (top 89%) · 0 views
Niche: software and system emulators · 114 launches, 4 in the last 7 days ▼ -56% · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 114 launches in software and system emulators →
Could you build this?
Partial Wrapping the open-source v86 x86 emulator in a web UI is simple, but compiling a customized lightweight Linux/Emacs image and configuring WebAssembly emulation with terminal IO requires specific systems knowledge.
What it would actually take: Uses the `v86` WebAssembly PC emulator embedded inside a web page with Xterm.js or canvas rendering. The challenging part is preparing and stripping a bootable Linux kernel and root filesystem image with Emacs pre-installed to minimize bundle download size, configure virtual terminal serial ports, and handle filesystem persistence via IndexedDB.
Discussion
No comments on this launch.
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 437 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #404 of 438 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 141 days after the earliest competitor.
- M68k assembly emulator that runs in the browser · hn · 2026-03-17 · 19 upvotes · similarity 0.69
- Esp32sim · hn · 2026-10-17 · 207 upvotes · similarity 0.55
- BrowserCode · hn · 2026-05-07 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.53
- Lichess.el · hn · 2026-01-27 · 22 upvotes · similarity 0.53
- Running Win32/DirectX games in the browser via x86 emulation and WebGPU · hn · 2026-07-14 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.50
- etaf · github · 2026-10-12 · 14 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- WebTerm · hn · 2026-01-18 · 8 upvotes · similarity 0.49
- PDF tools that run in the browser, no upload · hn · 2026-07-22 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.46
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