Game · Consoles, homebrew & emulation

ares

Multi-system console emulation suite.

Completely free
Windows and Linux
Open source
No account

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Geographic availability: No geographic restriction found in our sources; availability is not checked country by country.

Technical details

Pricing: Completely freeconfirmed by Flathub, Winget (Windows Package Manager)
License: ISC — Open source (permissive)confirmed by Flathub, Winget (Windows Package Manager)
Open source: Yes
Commercial use: Yesconfirmed by Flathub, Winget (Windows Package Manager)
Account required: Noconfirmed by Winget (Windows Package Manager)
Credit card required: Noconfirmed by Flathub, Winget (Windows Package Manager)
Watermark: Not applicable
Ads: not documented
Platforms: Windows and LinuxEstablished by Linux: Flathub · Windows: Winget
Publisher: ares team
Latest version: 148 (30 May 2026)
Latest activity: 8 June 2026
Source code: github.com/ares-emulator/ares

At a glance

ares is completely free: it is open source software, and every feature is available without paying or subscribing.

Its licence (ISC) is a permissive open source licence: use, modification and redistribution are allowed, including in commercial projects.

Strengths

Open source code
No account needed
Commercial use allowed

About

ares is a cross-platform, open source, multi-system emulator, focusing on accuracy and preservation. ares includes the following features: Native multi-platform UI Adaptive sync Dynamic rate control Save states Run-ahead Rewind and fast-forward Pixel shaders Color correction 6th-order IIR audio filtering Input multi-mapping Built-in games database Debugger Librashader ares currently emulates the following hardware devices: Aleck 64 Arcade ColecoVision Famicom + Famicom Disk System Super Famicom Nintendo 64 + Nintendo 64DD Game Boy + Super Game Boy Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance Game Gear Master System Mega 32X Mega Drive Mega CD MSX + MSX 2 My Vision Neo Geo AES Neo Geo Pocket + Neo Geo Pocket Color PC Engine + PC Engine CD + SuperGrafx PlayStation Pocket Challenge V2 SG-1000 Satellaview SuFami Turbo WonderSwan + WonderSwan Color + Pocket Challenge V2 ZX Spectrum

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) — 7 November 2026
Facts collected from Winget (Windows Package Manager) (credit card, account, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) — 6 November 2026
Last technical check: 6 November 2026
Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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