Bourbon 26 guides
Windows software on your Mac,
honestly
Comparisons that admit where the competition wins, and guides for specific apps — including the ones we tell you to run somewhere else.
Explainers
Windows games on Mac
Every way to run Windows games on a Mac in 2026 — translation, streaming, virtual machines — and which one fits the games you actually play.
Explainers
Steam on Mac
Steam runs on macOS, and most of its catalog can reach your Mac one way or another. What's native, what needs translation, and what streams.
Explainers
Anti-cheat on Mac
Kernel-level anti-cheat is why Fortnite, Valorant and Apex won't run on a Mac through any translation layer — and what actually works instead.
Explainers
Boot Camp on Apple Silicon
Boot Camp doesn't exist on M-series Macs. What replaced it for games, and when you actually need a full Windows install.
Guides
Play Windows games on Mac for free
The genuinely free routes — raw Wine, Game Porting Toolkit, what's left of Whisky — what they cost you in time, and when $29.99 stops being worth avoiding.
Product
Bourbon 26 system requirements
What Bourbon 26 needs, everything it installs, and how much disk the whole Windows-gaming stack actually takes.
Explainers
DXVK vs D3DMetal
DXVK, VKD3D, DXMT, WineD3D or D3DMetal — what each renderer translates, and which one your game wants on a Mac.
Product
Wine bottles on Mac
What a Wine bottle (prefix) is, why every game deserves its own, and how Bourbon 26's Bottle Shelf manages runtimes per title.
Guides
AIL eAPP on Mac
How to run the AIL eAPP on macOS with Bourbon 26, step by step.
Guides
Run .exe files on Mac
How to open and run Windows .exe and .msi files on macOS — safely, in their own bottle.
Guides
Notepad++ on Mac
Notepad++, PuTTY, WinSCP and the small Windows utilities worth keeping on your Mac — and the native swaps worth taking instead.
Alternatives
Whisky alternative
Whisky is no longer maintained. What that means for your bottles, and the closest like-for-like replacement on macOS.
Alternatives
CrossOver alternative
CrossOver charges yearly; Bourbon 26 is $29.99 once. Where CodeWeavers still earns its price, and where the alternative wins.
Alternatives
Parallels alternative
Parallels runs a whole Windows; Bourbon 26 runs just your games. Which approach fits, and when a full VM is genuinely the right call.
Explainers
Game Porting Toolkit
What Apple's Game Porting Toolkit is, who it's actually for, and how Bourbon 26 packages the same technology for people who just want to play.
Explainers
Windows on Apple Silicon
Every way to run Windows software on an M-series Mac in 2026 — translation, emulation, VMs — and how to pick per app.
Explainers
What Wine can't run
Drivers, kernel services, anti-cheat and the other Windows software no translation layer can handle — where a VM is the honest answer.