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Game · Consoles, homebrew & emulation

melonDS

Nintendo DS and DSi emulator.

  • Completely free
  • Windows and Linux
  • Open source
  • No account

Overview

Gameplay elements described in its Flathub listing and on its official website: controller support.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “Joystick support” — Flathub, 10 November 2026
  • “Work-in-progress Wi-Fi emulation for online connectivity and local multiplayer” — Flathub, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of melonDS is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (GPL-3.0) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • No account needed
  • Commercial use allowed

About

melonDS aims at providing fast and accurate Nintendo DS emulation. While it is still a work in progress, it has a pretty solid set of features. Nearly complete core (CPU, video, audio, ...) OpenGL renderer, 3D upscaling RTC, microphone, lid close/open Joystick support Savestates Various display position/sizing/rotations modes Work-in-progress Wi-Fi emulation for online connectivity and local multiplayer Experimental emulation of the Nintendo DSi ...and even more is planned!

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

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

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