Free and paid apps for Windows games on a Mac, compared

Updated 5 October 2026 (Uncork's price: a free core and Uncork Pro) · facts about other projects taken from their public pages on 3 October 2026

We make Uncork and have a stake in this comparison, so we start with where others are stronger than us. Facts about other projects come from their public pages on 3 October 2026 (CrossOver, as of 8 October 2026); we did not run their apps. What a project says about itself is marked “as described”: we could not check it ourselves. If something is out of date or wrong, write to hello@uncork.win and we will fix it.

Where others are stronger than Uncork

Price. Almost all the other apps are free, while in Uncork the mouse from the device, “Even frames” and wheel force feedback need Pro at €19 once.
Open source. The code of Highball, the Whisky fork and Heroic is open; Uncork's code is closed.
Databases of tested games. Highball has an open database of verdicts, CrossOver's page lists 22,708 applications, and we have tested 14 games ourselves.
Newer engine. Highball, the Whisky fork and Grapple (per its site) offer engine version 11.0, while Uncork is still on 10.0.
Stores and Intel. Heroic and Porting Kit cover GOG and other stores; they and CrossOver (per its page) also run on Intel Macs, while Uncork is Apple Silicon only.
Wheels. The Torqer utility lists verified force feedback for 12 wheel models, while Uncork has tested only the Logitech G923.

The table

Facts about other projects come from their public pages on 3 October 2026, the CrossOver row is as of 8 October 2026, the Uncork row is as of 8 October 2026. “As described” marks a claim by the project that we did not verify.

App	Price and code	Stores	Notarization	What is verified
Uncork	free + Pro €19: the core is free, no account needed; Pro is €19 once, every 1.x update; 7-day Pro trial; closed source; Apple Silicon, macOS 14+	Steam and Epic tested, five more stores marked “not tested”	yes: Developer ID and Apple notarization (since 1.0.12)	14 games tested by us; since 1.1 (8 October 2026) also community reports for ~380 games from the open highball-db snapshot (CC0); frame rates measured for two games, on one Mac
Highball	free, GPL-3.0; beta; macOS 14+, Apple Silicon	Steam and Epic; Rockstar and EA app need the second engine; Ubisoft Connect and Battle.net only reach the sign-in window; GOG Galaxy does not work	yes, as described	19 games verified by hand, 232 by community consensus, 46 marked impossible
CrossOver (CodeWeavers)	paid: CrossOver + $54 (12 months of support and updates), CrossOver Life $494 (support and updates for life), a free evaluation version for 14 days; CodeWeavers publishes the source code on its site; version 27.0 as of 8 October 2026; Intel and Apple Silicon Macs	not stated on the page	not stated on the page	22,708 applications in its compatibility database, per the project's page
Whisky fork (frankea)	free, GPL-3.0; macOS 15+, Apple Silicon	per the README Steam, Epic, EA App, Rockstar, Battle.net	yes, as described	80+ per-game configs, most of which the project itself rates unverified
Sikarugir (formerly Kegworks)	free, part under LGPL-2.1; macOS 14.6+	a wrapper builder for games, not a store library	the project does not say	no compatibility database found
Porting Kit	free, pay what you want; Apple Silicon and Intel; not stated to be open source	GOG, Steam, Ubisoft Connect, EA/Origin, Battle.net; no Epic	the project does not say	almost 1,500 games, as the project describes it
GameHub for Mac	price not stated; client closed; public beta	Steam; Epic per press reports	the project does not say	per a video relayed by MacStories, about 60% of 20 games were playable
Heroic	free, GPL-3.0; macOS 14+, Apple Silicon and Intel	Epic, GOG, Amazon; no Steam	the project does not say	no compatibility database found
Bourbon 26	from $29.99 once, 24-hour trial; Apple Silicon; app closed, recipes open (MIT)	as described: Steam, Epic/GOG/Amazon through Heroic, Battle.net, EA, Ubisoft	yes, as described	fixes for 528 Steam games, 236 concrete (repository, 4 August 2026)
Pixel Port	free; Apple Silicon; version 0.x, beta; the site does not say whether the code is open	Steam only	yes, as described	per the site, 74 of 11,048 entries verified on a real Mac
Grapple	free: one game forever, swappable every 30 days; Pro €29 a year (€3.49 a month), whole library, up to 3 Macs; whether the app's code is open, the site does not say; Apple Silicon, macOS 14+, Rosetta 2 needed; version 0.1.0 in its docs (as of 8 October 2026)	Steam, Epic, GOG Galaxy (as described, GOG games not yet tested), your own games	the site does not say	478 entries on its games page: 3 “works”, 320 “likely to work”, 72 “unknown”, 83 “won't run”

“The project does not say” and “not stated” mean one thing only: the pages we read have nothing on it, not that there is no notarization or no stores.

How Uncork differs

As Highball describes it, its default engine is a Sikarugir build, as in Uncork, and it also offers its own newer engine; the main difference is what is built on top. For Uncork that is input and what surrounds it; the table marks what is in the free core and what is in Uncork Pro:

What	Uncork	Other projects, per the pages we read
The mouse is read from the device itself, at up to 1000 Hz	yes, in Uncork Pro; measurements on the mouse page	not mentioned
Logitech wheel force feedback	in Uncork Pro (since 1.0.1): G923 (PlayStation and PC version) tested in Assetto Corsa, G29 supported in code	not claimed as a feature by the apps above; the separate utility Torqer, per its site, lists force feedback as verified for 12 wheel models (Logitech G29, G920 and the Xbox G923 among them; the PlayStation G923 is in beta there), costs $12 once and says it works alongside Heroic and Sikarugir; the open-source g29-mac (since 2 September 2026), per its README, gives a G29 force feedback under Whisky
Frame evening for single-player games	yes, in Uncork Pro; measured in CS2: 87% even intervals against 18%	not mentioned
macOS Game Mode for Windows games	yes, free	not mentioned in the apps above; the separate utility Torqer, per its guide (updated 3 October 2026), has a Game Mode switch (off / auto / on) built on Apple's gamepolicyctl tool from Xcode
Gamepad	free: a mode that moves the pointer on the Mac while no game is running	Highball has a troubleshooting section on a controller that is not recognised or shows up twice, the Whisky fork has a controller compatibility mode, GameHub has a “gamepad bridge” (per its tracker), and in Heroic, per the repository's code, a gamepad can drive the launcher itself; we found no mode for driving the Mac with no game running

“Not mentioned” covers only the pages we read: READMEs, sites, docs and articles, not the code (the exception is the gamepad row for Heroic, which rests on the repository's code). Also, similar changes for the mouse have already been proposed in shared Mac code and on 3 October 2026 are not yet accepted, so the picture may change in time. What exactly we recorded about CS2 on a Mac, and under which conditions, is on the page How to play CS2 on a Mac: M3 Pro frame rates, mouse, VAC, FACEIT.

How to choose

You need free and open source — Highball or the Whisky fork. Highball has an open database with verdicts, and the Whisky fork, per its README, continues Whisky and can import bottles from the original.
You need a builder for a separate app per game — Sikarugir.
Games not from Steam: GOG — Heroic or Porting Kit; Amazon — Heroic.
You want a Steam library in one click and can live with a beta of a closed-source app — GameHub for Mac.
You play single-player games and racing games, and care about G923 force feedback, the mouse from the device and even frames — Uncork: launching games is free, while the mouse from the device, “Even frames” and wheel force feedback are in Uncork Pro at €19 once, with a 7-day Pro trial.
You play competitive shooters with kernel-level anti-cheat — none of these apps will run such games on the Mac itself, what to do.

Limits of this comparison

We did not run other people's apps and did not compare speed: our frame-rate measurements are from one Mac and only in Uncork. Prices and versions change, so the rows about other projects were checked on 3 October 2026 (CrossOver and the Uncork row are as of 8 October), and the database counters of Highball and Pixel Port change almost daily. Projects' claims about notarization, the number of verified games and stores are given as claims. Porting Kit figures come from the project's itch.io page and the store filter on portingkit.com; the game list on portingkit.com is loaded by a script, so we give the number of games as the project describes it. We left out very new projects with little to compare, for example Win Over (a free MVP with about 14 games (11 open to try) and no price yet, per its site). If you know better, write to us.