Let all of us come together and do this again, r/emulation community. Right now it's basically the same list as last year, but I will update this consistently.

I'm very curious to see what changed and which new emulators we will find.

Keep in mind that this list is really subjective because most of the time it's really hard to define what is the best emulator of a system. Yes, it tries to show a top list, but primarily it's a general view of great emulators.

Last year: [2018] best / most compatible emulators for...

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Edit:

25.07.2020: Last update for this year.

10.01.2020: That was a lot of input. Even more than last year! I think we now have a really great list. Thank you, everyone. :-)

03.01.2020: Another update

02.01.2020: Wow. First few hours and we have already found a lot of new stuff and emulators that no longer exist. Updated. Thanks! :)

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MS-DOS

1. DOSBox (best two forks which have all SVN changes and some more features: DOSBox ECE and DOSBox-staging)

2. DOSBox-X (Fork of DOSBox with focus on accurate emulation of the hardware and many more ways to tweak and configure DOS)

3. PCem (focus on accurate emulation)

Windows 95 / 98

1. PCem

2. 86Box (Fork of PCem)

3. DOSBox-X (Fork of DOSBox)

Nintendo Entertainment System

1. Mesen

2. puNES

3. Nestopia UE (active development has ceased)

4. FCEUX (not cycle accurate like the others, but has a lot of great features)

Virtual Boy

1. Mednafen (GUI)

2. VBjin

Game & Watch

MAME

Super Nintendo

1. bsnes (same core, different UI with less features: higan. In general bsnes is the best choice, because it has way more features than higan. Just disable every enhancement option and bsnes is as accurate as higan.)

2. Mesen-S (balance between super accuracy (bsnes/higan) and performance (snes9x). Amazing UI and a ton of debug tools.)

3. Snes9x

Nintendo 64

1. m64p (mupen64plus+GLideN64+a GUI)

2. ParaLLEI N64 with Multithreaded Angrylion (libretro core)

3. Project64

4. CEN64

Nintendo GameCube / Wii

Dolphin

Wii U

1. Cemu

2. Decaf

Nintendo Switch

1. Yuzu

2. Ryujinx

Game Boy / Game Boy Color

1. Sameboy (SNES emulator bsnes is using this core for Super Game Boy emulation)

2. BGB

3. Gambatte (has ceased development. Just libgambatte exist now.)

4. mGBA

5. Mesen-S

Game Boy Advance

1. mGBA

2. higan

3. VBA-M

Nintendo DS

1. DeSmuME

2. melonDS

Nintendo 3DS

Citra

PlayStation

1. Mednafen (GUI)

2. Beetle PSX HW (libretro core)

3. XEBRA

4. PCSX-R PGXP

5. ePSXe

PlayStation 2

1. PCSX2

2. Play!

PlayStation 3

RPCS3

PlayStation Portable

PPSSPP

Xbox

1. Cxbx-Reloaded

2. xqemu

Xbox 360

Xenia

Sega Game Gear

1. Genesis Plus GX (libretro and bizhawk core)

2. TwoMbit

Sega Master System

1. Genesis Plus GX (libretro and bizhawk core)

2. TwoMbit

Sega Mega Drive

1. Genesis Plus GX (libretro and bizhawk core)

2. BlastEm

3. Exodus

4. Kega Fusion

5. Gens

Sega Mega-CD

Gens

Sega 32X / CD-32X

1. PicoDrive

2. Kega Fusion

Sega Saturn

1. Mednafen (GUI)

2. SSF

3. Yaba Sanshiro

4. Yabause

Sega Dreamcast

1. Flycast (libretro core. Standalone build: https://flyinghead.github.io/flycast-builds/ )

2. redream

3. DEmul (Malware? At least some users said this here, so I don't link to the site)

WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color

1. higan

2. Beetle Cygne (libretro core)

3DO

1. Phoenix Project

2. 4DO

PC Engine / TurboGrafx 16

1. Mednafen (GUI)

2. Ootake

Commodore 64

1. Micro64

2. Vice

Commodore Amiga

1. FS-UAE (integrates the most accurate Amiga emulation code available from WinUAE)

2. WinUAE

Atari ST

1. Steem SSE

2. Hatari

Atari 8-Bit computer (Atari 400/800, 1200XL, 600/800XL, 130XE, XEGS, and 5200)

Altirra

Atari Lynx

1. MAME

2. Mednafen (GUI)

Atari 2600

Stella

Atari 7800

1. ProSystem

2. MAME

Atari Jaguar

1. Phoenix

2. Virtual Jaguar

MSX

openMSX

Macintosh

1. SheepShaver (PowerPCs -> MacOS 7.5.2 - 9.0.4)

2. Basilisk II (68K Macs.)

Apple

1. MAME

2. AppleWin

Acorn Archimedes

1. ArcEm

2. RPCEmu

Neo Geo Pocket

1. Vdmgr

2. Mednafen (GUI)

PC-FX

Mednafen (GUI)

ColecoVision

1. Vdmgr

2. MAME

Vectrex

VIDE

Sharp X68000

1. XM6 TypeG

2. XM6 Pro-68k

3. MAME

Sinclair ZX Spectrum

1. Fuse

2. Zesarux

3. Retro Virtual Machine

Gamate, Casio PV1000, Casio PV2000, Tiger electronics handhelds

MAME

Watara Supervision

Wataroo

BBC Micro and Master 128

BeebEm