Alternative to the Apple system: ravynOS wants to become an open-source operating system for Mac apps | News

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Apple’s approach of providing hardware and software from a single source has many advantages, but also disadvantages: If the company decides to no longer support software features or model series, users usually only have two options: either they stay in an increasingly insecure system, or they switch to new hardware. A project called ravynOS now wants to remedy the situation with an open-source and UNIX-based operating system. The big special feature: Programs compiled for macOS should be able to run under ravynOS.

As a starting point, the development team chose a kernel that Apple also used as a starting point: ravynOS is based on FreeBSD. This is intended to ensure maximum hardware compatibility, because ravynOS should not only run on Apple hardware, but should work universally. Currently the focus is on x86 processors; In the future, the open source system will also run on RISC architecture, i.e. Arm chips.

Global menu, usual paths, consistent shortcuts
The developers want to integrate essential macOS concepts into the user interface: the file hierarchy should be as similar as possible to that of a Mac, and a static menu bar should display commands of the currently active program. Shortcuts for copying and pasting should be executable by default using the command key, and the entire system should have a distraction-free and attractive design.

Install (Mac) programs via drag & drop
ravynOS also wants to take over the typical Mac installation: users drag an app bundle into the Applications folder to install it. This should also work for macOS programs. The goal is to develop a compatibility layer that enables Cocoa-based programs (with the AppKit user interface) to be started.

A long way
Anyone hoping to use ravynOS as a productive system soon will probably be disappointed: the open source project is in an early alpha version. Only those who want to participate in the development should dare to install the current version. The current version 0.6.1 was presented in October 2025. You can check out the activity on the project’s GitHub page: The still young project shows steady but low activity before the end of the year, which now appears to have come to a standstill. So far, only seven volunteers have achieved a double-digit number of code commits.

(Thanks to xcomma for pointing this out in the MacTechNews forum!)