Gridlantis · Desktop
Home labbing made easy. Your virtual machines, Docker containers and remote desktop in one place.
Free · Linux, Windows, macOS · everything runs on your own machine
Virtual machines
Machines
What it is
Point it at an ISO and you have a machine with its own disk, booting in its own window.
Run a database, a web server or a build image in seconds, without installing any of it.
Reach another computer on your network and use its screen as if you were sitting at it.
How it works
Virtual Labs doesn't reinvent virtualization. It puts a usable face on QEMU, Docker and VNC, which are the same tools professionals already run. That has consequences worth knowing about before you install anything.
A machine created here is an ordinary qcow2 disk image. A container here is an ordinary container. Uninstall Virtual Labs and every one of them still works.
There is no account, no cloud and no telemetry. Virtual machine screens and published container ports bind to 127.0.0.1, reachable from your computer and nowhere else.
A System tab lists every tool the app looked for, whether it found it, and the exact command to install it. No feature silently pretends to work.
Disks, ISOs, logs and settings live in a single folder you can open, back up or delete like any other. Virtual disks are sparse: a 40 GB disk costs what it actually uses.
Download
Free, and the same app on every platform. Pick your system. The installer brings the app itself; the tools it drives are listed under Requirements below.
These builds are unsigned. Windows SmartScreen and macOS Gatekeeper will warn the first time you open the app. On Windows choose More info → Run anyway, on macOS right-click the app and choose Open. To confirm a download is exactly the file we published, check it against SHA256SUMS.
Requirements
Every feature works on its own. Missing one tool disables one tab, not the app, and the System tab inside Virtual Labs shows this same table filled in for your actual machine.
| For | You need | How to install it |
|---|---|---|
| Virtual machines | QEMU |
Arch: sudo pacman -S qemu-fullDebian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install qemu-system-x86 qemu-utilsmacOS: brew install qemu · Windows: the QEMU installer
|
| UEFI machines | OVMF firmware | Usually packaged as edk2-ovmf or ovmf. Needed by Windows 11 and other modern installers. |
| Full speed | Hardware acceleration | KVM on Linux, Hypervisor.framework on macOS, Windows Hypervisor Platform on Windows. Machines still boot without it, just slowly. |
| Containers | Docker Engine | Linux: sudo systemctl enable --now docker · macOS & Windows: Docker Desktop |
| Connecting out | Nothing extra for VNC | RDP uses FreeRDP or Remmina on Linux, and the built-in client on Windows and macOS. |
| Sharing this screen | A screen server | Linux: x11vnc, or wayvnc on Wayland. macOS and Windows switch this on in system settings instead. |