How to actually choose an emulator frontend

A frontend does not emulate anything. The emulators do the work; the frontend is the room you keep them in — it finds your games, fetches the box art, and launches the right emulator with the right settings so you are not editing config files at midnight. That means the choice is about how you want to live with your collection, not about performance. Every option here launches the same emulators at the same speed.

Start with the machine, not the software

If the computer has another job — work, browsing, Steam — you want an application: RetroBat, ES-DE, LaunchBox, Playnite, Pegasus or Bezel. If the machine exists only to play old games, an operating system like Batocera is a genuinely better answer, because there is nothing to alt-tab out of and it survives being switched off at the wall by a seven-year-old.

Be honest about how much setup you enjoy

Some people find configuring scrapers and themes relaxing. If that is you, Pegasus and ES-DE will reward the hours. If your idea of a good evening is playing a game rather than preparing to play a game, RetroBat and Bezel both aim to be running within minutes of the download finishing.

Free versus paid, plainly

LaunchBox is the only mainstream frontend with a meaningful paywall, and it is worth saying that the paid tier is not a scam — the database and importer are genuinely excellent and the project has been maintained for over a decade. But you should know what you are paying for: full-screen Big Box mode and continued updates, not the ability to launch games. Everything else on this list, including ours, is free.

Where Bezel fits, without the marketing

We would rather tell you the truth than win an argument. Bezel is younger than every other frontend here. If your priority is the largest theme community, the deepest metadata scraper, or the most years of bug fixes behind it, one of the others is the better tool and we would rather you were happy than merely converted.

What Bezel has that none of them do is Bezelie. She is an animated companion who sits beside the game, actually watches the screen, reacts to what is happening, remembers your sessions across evenings and can take a second controller in co-op. Retro gaming is often solitary; she is an attempt to make it less so. The launcher underneath is free and works on Windows, macOS, Linux and Steam Deck, with 25+ systems, disc ripping, on-screen translation for import games, and your library shelved with proper art.

If that sounds like a gimmick to you, take RetroBat. Genuinely. If it sounds like the thing that has been missing, that is the one place we are not competing with anybody.

Bezel vs LaunchBox, specifically

This is the comparison we get asked for most, so here it is without spin. LaunchBox wins on maturity: over a decade of development, the deepest artwork and metadata database of anything here, and a theme community nothing else matches. If those are your priorities, buy it and you will be happy.

Bezel wins on five things that are facts rather than opinions:

• Price. LaunchBox’s full-screen Big Box mode sits behind a paid licence. Bezel’s equivalent is free, and so is everything else in it — there is no paid tier for the launcher at all.
• Platforms. LaunchBox is Windows only. Bezel runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Steam Deck from the same free download.
• Discs and imports. Bezel rips your own discs to playable files and puts a live translation overlay over Japanese games while you play them. LaunchBox does neither.
• Game music. Bezel records each game’s own soundtrack straight from the emulator, out of the games you already own — one click does a whole system, free. LaunchBox pulls music from EmuMovies, which needs a paid subscription; without one you source and add every track by hand.
• Bezelie. No other frontend on this page, paid or free, has a companion who watches the screen, reacts to what happens, remembers your sessions and can take a second controller.

What LaunchBox has that we do not is years. Bezel is in beta, with fewer themes and a younger scraper behind it. That is the honest trade, and we would rather you made it with your eyes open: pay for maturity, or take a free cross-platform launcher that does several things nobody else has built.

Common questions

What is the best emulator frontend in 2026?

There is no single winner and anyone claiming one is selling something. RetroBat for the easiest Windows start, Batocera for a dedicated machine, ES-DE for cross-platform and Steam Deck, LaunchBox for artwork, Playnite for one unified library, Pegasus for customisation, Bezel for company.

Is LaunchBox free?

There is a free version. Big Box — the full-screen couch interface — requires Premium, roughly $15 for a year of updates or $45 for permanent ones. The free tier is still a usable launcher.

RetroBat or Batocera?

RetroBat is a Windows app that leaves your PC a PC. Batocera is its own operating system that boots from a USB stick and turns the machine into a console. That is the whole difference, and it decides it for most people.

Which is best on Steam Deck?

ES-DE, usually — it runs natively, handles controller navigation properly, and arrives preconfigured for well over a hundred systems. Batocera if you would rather boot into a dedicated retro environment. Bezel runs there too.

Is Bezel better than LaunchBox?

On maturity, no — LaunchBox has a decade of development and a far deeper metadata database. On price, platforms, free per-game music, disc ripping and having a companion who plays along, yes: Bezel is free on Windows, macOS, Linux and Steam Deck, and LaunchBox is a paid licence on Windows only. Pick by which of those matters to you.

Do I still need RetroArch?

Usually yes, underneath. Most frontends here drive RetroArch cores for a good part of the library and hand the rest to standalone emulators like PCSX2, Dolphin or DuckStation. The frontend is what saves you from configuring all of them by hand.

More free tools: Can you emulate it? · Which emulator should you use? · What is your collection worth?