Public beta · for Apple Silicon Macs
Barrel installs Steam for Windows, finds your games and plays them with the right graphics for each one. Free, open source, and no trial to run out.
Read the source on GitHub
Click Install Steam: Barrel sets up the Windows version of Steam with the fixes it needs on a Mac. Sign in, install your games, and they appear in the library.
It is the real Steam: your account, your games, your cloud saves.
Automatic uses the game's tested profile when there is one. Prefer another? Pick DXVK, DXMT or wined3d for that game, and nothing else changes.
DXVK, DXMT and wined3d ship inside the app.
Add to Dock turns a game into a Mac app with its own icon. One click and it starts, with its profile applied.
Also from the terminal: barrel launcher game.
Under the hood
A Windows game talks to Windows and to Direct3D. Barrel answers both: Wine speaks for Windows, DXVK or DXMT speak for Direct3D.
Implements the Windows API on macOS: windows, files, input, audio and networking. Built with CrossOver 26.3's open-source patches and run under Rosetta 2.
DXVK turns Direct3D 9–11 into Vulkan, which MoltenVK runs on Metal. DXMT goes from Direct3D 11 straight to Metal.
Everything around them: Steam's setup, the library, game profiles, Mac launchers and a self-contained runtime inside the app.
Performance
In the Stonewards main menu on an Apple M2, Barrel with DXMT spends less GPU time per frame than CrossOver 26 with D3DMetal, and uses about 40% less GPU memory than DXVK.
Compare
CrossOver is the polished, paid option. NotProton brings Steam Play to the Mac Steam app, on top of CrossOver. Barrel is free and open, and still young.
 Barrel |
 CrossOver 26 |
 NotProton |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | €74 a year or €484 for life, after a 14-day trial | Free, but it runs games through CrossOver, so you need a CrossOver licence |
| Source code | Open, GPL-3.0 | Closed app, on top of open-source Wine | Open, GPL-3.0 (some parts under Valve's licences) |
| Windows apps, not just games | Steam games only | ||
| How Steam runs | Windows Steam in a bottle | Windows Steam in a bottle | Your Mac Steam app, with Steam Play switched on |
| Graphics engines | wined3d, DXVK and DXMT, chosen per game; D3DMetal with your own Game Porting Toolkit | wined3d, DXVK, DXMT and D3DMetal included | CrossOver's |
Games built on Direct3D 9, 10 and 11 run through DXVK or DXMT. Barrel is in beta: many games work, not all of them, and every report helps.
Anti-cheat systems such as Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye refuse to run under Wine on a Mac, so games like Apex Legends, PUBG or Destiny 2 will not start.
Games that only use DirectX 12 need Apple’s Game Porting Toolkit, which Barrel cannot include. Support for your own copy is built in, but still experimental.
A profile only exists when someone played the game and wrote down what it needed. Most games need none.
A launcher is a real Mac app. Barrel reads the icon out of the game's executable, so it looks right in the Dock and Spotlight.
Barrel runs Valve's own Windows client, so your account, purchases and cloud saves are simply there.
Wine, DXVK and DXMT ship inside Barrel.app. The only extra piece is Apple's Rosetta 2.
Advanced
Under the hood, Steam lives in a bottle: a self-contained Windows with its own C: drive and registry. Make more of them, for any Windows program, not just games.
Create, copy, export to a .tar.gz and restore them, each with its own Windows version and settings.
One-click installers written as short JSON files. Steam is one of them; write your own.
Everything the app does is a barrel command, for scripts and for people who live in the terminal.
Got a game working? A guide walks you, or an AI agent such as Claude Code, through testing it and sharing its profile.
Open source
Barrel is GPL-3.0. Every patch we make to Wine and DXVK is published, and every bundled component keeps its own license.
Public beta
Barrel is in beta. The most useful thing you can send us is which games run for you and which don’t: each report becomes a tested profile for everyone.
Both use a free GitHub account.
