Which OS Is Best for Old Macs in 2025? I Tested Them All So You Don’t Have To

If you haven’t upgraded to a new Mac in a while, now is the best time. Apple just dropped several models with the M-series chips. However, not everyone has the money for that readily available, so looking for OS alternatives may be a good idea. In my research, I found out that the best OS for old Macs will vary widely depending on your priorities. Most people will be best served by trying Linux distros, but keeping a partition with a macOS installation is recommended.

Intel Macs Will Soon Lose Support

Discussing this matters because the next macOS version, Tahoe, will be the last one to support Macs with Intel processors. In addition to that, even though some features are supported on Intel Macs, Tahoe focuses heavily on Apple Silicon devices.

That doesn’t mean support for Intel Macs will be dropped outright. Apple still releases security fixes for older OSes three years after they initially launch, so you won’t be abandoned immediately. New features, however, are out of the question.

Breathing New Life Into Old Macs: Best OS Possibilities

Now, at that point, you’ll have to weigh your options. Since distinct aspects matter differently for each person, I will list some pros and cons of each choice below.

Use The Last Official macOS Available

If your Mac has made it to the macOS Tahoe compatible devices list, this is a no-brainer. For those with older machines, it may or may not be the best choice.

Macs for which official support stopped in macOS Sonoma or Sequoia will still be good for quite a while. Even after that, many apps should still work just as well and still receive updates. While first-party Apple apps are only compatible with the three most recent OSes, other companies usually support older versions.

Therefore, if you don’t rely heavily on Apple’s products and services, your current Mac will mostly remain unaffected. You’ll just need to pay additional attention to security issues, since newer vulnerabilities won’t be patched by Apple.

Install OpenCore Legacy Patcher

There’s a way, however, of having the most recent macOS version even if your Mac doesn’t officially support it. With OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OCLP), your machine is spoofed as compatible with newer versions, keeping your software up-to-date.

There are some downsides to that, obviously. Firstly, not all new features will be available. Even currently-supported Intel Macs, e.g., lack Apple Intelligence, so don’t expect it to work on a 2009 Mac Mini.

The second aspect to consider is performance. Most Macs are good enough to run about 2-3 macOS versions more than what they officially support, performing decently. Some may go even further: a 2008 Mac Pro packs more punch, in some aspects, than a 2020 MacBook Air. It isn’t (completely) surprising, then, that people were able to get this model running macOS Sequoia.

However, you definitely won’t get top-notch speeds from those machines. It’s always a good idea checking in the OCLP subreddit for opinions on the best macOS version for your Mac.

Experiment With Linux Distros

Macs have a huge advantage to other computers when running Linux distros: standardized hardware. That’s ironic, I know, considering how Apple is known for hugely deviating from standards.

However, Macs retain more-or-less the same components for a few years in each generation. What usually varies, when there’s no huge redesign, is stuff that’s also standardized, like processors and GPUs.

That means it’s unlikely you’ll need to spend hours or days looking for compatible software all around the web. I oftentimes suffered to find Linux drivers for obscure parts used in half a dozen computers, but never with Macs.

In addition to that, most Linux distros are light on the hardware, giving you a good performance bump. And, since they’re Unix-based systems, just like macOS, you may find many familiar patterns in the user interface. This helps to reduce the learning curve, which is often the most troublesome part of migrating to a new OS.

Try Windows

I have been heavily criticized, more than a few times, for recommending installing Windows on Macs. Truth be told, though: there are quite a few cases in which this is a better alternative than macOS.

With Windows 10 (and even Windows 11), Microsoft has done a really decent job of optimizing the OS for weaker hardware. I have installed the former on laptops from 2009, maybe even older. With the help of an SSD, I can tell for sure they run pretty great. Only keep in mind they won’t be able to perform any otherworldly tasks, but they’re good enough for light usage.

One last thing to mention on that topic is that Macs lack a TPM 2.0 module, which Windows 11 requires. There is, however, a workaround for that, all while keeping macOS installed and Boot Camp compatibility. I have recently written a comprehensive guide on that, so be sure to take a look at it.

What Is the Best OS for Old Macs? Real-Life Tests

Now, all the above isn’t of much help if I don’t provide the means to help you make an informed decision. That’s why I spent over a week performing a battery of tests to give you the most accurate data possible. And not in one, but in two computers. This way, you’ll know how things go both on a not-that-old Mac and on a fairly ancient one.

Methodology

The most important aspect to consider is performance. After all, no matter the OS, you won’t be able to properly use your Mac if it’s sluggish.

Benchmarks

While it’s hard to determine performance in a cross-platform context, Geekbench is the closest we get to such standardization. It performs a set of OS-agnostic CPU and GPU tests, assigning a score that is calibrated to a baseline.

For my tests, I chose Geekbench 5, since the newer Geekbench 6 isn’t compatible with macOS Catalina. This version uses a Dell Precision 3430 (Intel Core i3-8100 CPU) as the baseline score of 1,000 points.

CPU tests considered both the single-core and the multi-core performance. When testing graphics cards, I used the OpenCL API, even though it performs worse than Metal. I favored OpenCL because it’s the only API available on all three OSes, otherwise the scores wouldn’t be comparable.

Gaming

Benchmarks, however, only tell part of the story. To give you a broader performance picture, I also compared the playability of Divinity: Original Sin — Enhanced Edition. I chose this title because it runs acceptably on older machines, and is still a fairly popular game nowadays.

For those familiar with D:OS, I counted frame rates in two spots. Firstly, in Cyseal’s market square; secondly, in the lighthouse boss fight.

User Experience

Lastly, when testing my old Macs to find the best OS alternative, I also considered my user experience. How fluid are the animations? Does it take a long time to boot? Are apps slow to open? Will you find any significant bugs?

These and other questions require properly using each platform for a while. I used the time it takes to set everything up on a new OS, including the game download, for testing. That involved mostly basic internet browsing, which, I think, is the major use case not covered by the other tests.

In all cases, tests were run on the device’s built-in display. The intention is to mirror real-world usage as much as possible.

To give both computers a small edge, I have placed them on an active cooling pad. While most people likely don’t use cooling pads, I strongly encourage you to buy one. For starters, they help your Mac run cooler — macOS is known for only triggering fans at very high temperatures. Laptop stands also help with ergonomics, since the screen stays closer to the eye level, reducing strain on your neck. The major disadvantage of this is needing external keyboard and mouse (or trackpad), though I also recommend using those anyway.

Hackintosh (MacBook Pro Equivalent)

The first computer is my main Mac, which, well, isn’t a Mac. It’s an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54 (Intel Core i7-9750H, 24GB of RAM).

Its dedicated GPU, an Nvidia GTX 1650, isn’t supported by macOS, so I use the integrated UHD 630 instead. Because of that, some specificities apply. While I have executed the graphics tests on macOS, too, the scores are listed solely as a reference.

The actual graphics scores for the closest Mac (in terms of specifications) are much higher. They should match or surpass the Windows and Linux scores of the GTX 1650.

The Mac in this case is a 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, with the same i7-9750H. It comes with a Radeon Pro 5300M GPU by default, but the closest performance match would be the 5600M upgrade.

Lastly, the closest match, graphics-wise, is the 2018 Mac Mini (i7-8700B), which also uses the UHD 630. My Hackintosh is also roughly comparable to a 2020 13-inch i7 MacBook Pro with four Thunderbolt 3 ports. This one has a better GPU, but also requires more graphics firepower, having nearly twice as many pixels to render. To put things into perspective, this model is the second-weakest Mac compatible with macOS Tahoe.

macOS Catalina

Starting with macOS Catalina, the version the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro originally shipped with. Perhaps due to the OpenCore bootloader being optimized for Big Sur and later, CPU benchmarks returned considerably low results. It scored 1,024 points in single-core performance and 3,837 points in multi-core performance.

Graphics-wise, the UHD 630 scored 4,937 points, which is in line with newer versions. My gameplay tests resulted in ~10-15FPS with Ultra settings, and ~20-25FPS with graphics on Very Low.

Regarding day-to-day usage, I have had a very similar experience to what Geekbench scores suggest. While Catalina isn’t unbearably slow, even a brand-new installation felt less snappy than my well-worn Sequoia setup. You shouldn’t take this as indisputable truth, however, since the Hackintosh factor may be to blame, in this case.

macOS Sequoia (and Tahoe)

As I mentioned above, Sequoia gave me somewhat better numbers. In Geekbench, it reached 1,113 points in single-core, and 4,450 for multi-core. That means increases of, respectively, 8.6% and 15.9%.

The GPU score varied way less. I got 4,978 points in this test, a mere 0.8% increase over Catalina. Similarly, framerates for Divinity: Original Sin stayed around 12FPS on Ultra and 25FPS on Very Low.

In Sequoia, however, I found the performance more consistent. This may be due to whatever causes the same (perceived) differences in UI fluidity, or to a better OpenGL implementation. Being a considerably old game, D:OS doesn’t support the Metal API, but this is a very specific case. Unless you use lots of older apps and games, not optimized for Metal, this shouldn’t be a significant concern.

Speaking of older vs. newer apps, my experience running Sequoia has been great, even without a discrete GPU. My job as a writer often involves some light photo editing and sporadic graphic design tasks. For those, I use Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, and Illustrator — and, in rarer cases, Premiere Pro. Rendering times would obviously be way lower if I had a dedicated graphics card available, but they’re not unbearable either.

As an example, right now, writing this article, I have Slack, Photos, Photoshop, and 53 (not kidding!) browser tabs open. Smaller apps, like my plain text editor, Calculator, and some background apps, are using the CPU as well. With a room temperature of 28°C (82°F), my laptop is running at about 52°C (126°F).

Graphics-wise, I’m running the internal, Full HD display, and an external monitor (via a DisplayLink USB adapter). In some situations, this same GPU has powered four separate screens, mostly without breaking a sweat. Therefore, I can state quite confidently that the user experience has been very decent, to say the least.

The same can’t be said of macOS Tahoe. I installed the latest macOS in my Hackintosh some days after it was released, to write an article about it. Being a pre-release version, I won’t consider my experience as representing the real thing, but it’s a GPU hog.

The new “liquid glass” design language is very taxing, though this may change in the final build. All in all, it wouldn’t be much of an issue if all the iGPU had to do was render the user interface. In my case, it had to deal with the GUI and every other graphics task. However, only two Intel Macs that support Tahoe don’t feature discrete GPUs, so this shouldn’t be much of an issue.

While the numbers don’t tell the whole story, I decided to run Geekbench 5 on it as well. My CPU scores were 1,126 for single-core performance and 4,501 for multi-core. Both are about 1.1% higher than on Sequoia, well within a reasonable error margin. The 4,721 GPU score is 5.2% lower than on Sequoia, also not very significant.

I didn’t test gaming on Tahoe. That’s simply because opening more than a dozen browser tabs, or a couple of files in Photoshop, made my computer unusable. As soon as I did any slightly graphics-intensive task, the interface dropped to single-digit FPS. At least in the present state, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone depending on iGPUs, Hackintosh or not.

Linux Mint

Before moving back to macOS, I spent a few years as a Linux user almost exclusively. While the mere idea of Linux may seem too complicated for usual Mac owners, I can assure you it’s not. But let’s start with the benchmarks.

My CPU scores were 1,212 for single-core performance and 4,983 for multi-core. That’s in the same ballpark as in macOS, with 5-10% improvements.

On the compute test, the GTX1650 shows how much better a discrete GPU is, compared to an integrated graphics card. It scores 42,703, over eight times what the UHD 630 in macOS achieves.

At this point, I should mention the Radeon Pro 5600M in the comparable 16-inch MacBook Pro isn’t far behind. In OpenCL tests, I mean, with results ranging from 32,000 to 40,000. Using the Metal API, results go over 60,000, showing how optimized it is.

Now, about gaming. I got 90-100FPS in the battle scene and 80-90FPS in the market square, all with Ultra settings. In some less crowded situations, like cellars, the framerate easily went above 120FPS.

Regarding fluidity, the user experience in Mint, or any major Linux distro, is great out-of-the-box. Or, well, after you install the appropriate drivers. Since Valve’s Steam Deck, gaming on Linux finally become a serious topic, so you shouldn’t face stutterings at any moment.

I jumped from Ubuntu back to macOS in early 2023. I did it because I spent too long trying to make Ubuntu look and behave like macOS. This made the OS sluggish, visually inconsistent in many places, and considerably unstable.

Therefore, my suggestion is: choose a distro that caters to you and don’t try to change its looks too much. You may end up overcomplicating things and wanting to switch to macOS again for the sake of simplicity.

Windows 11

Windows is, well, Windows. Not too complicated, not too simple either, and always leaving a “this could be better” feeling. The good news here is that Apple itself offers a perfect set of drivers and customizations, via Boot Camp. Therefore, you will spend less time configuring a Mac to run Windows than you would spend with most other computers.

In Geekbench, I got lower CPU scores for this computer running Windows than on almost all other OSes. My single-core result was 1,015 points, while multi-core reached 3,910 points. Only Catalina performed worse than that, and by a very narrow margin. The GPU score was 40,634.

For the sake of completeness, I also tested it with the Nvidia card disabled. By comparing Windows and macOS iGPUs, you can have an idea of how your Mac should perform with discrete graphics. At 1,010 (single-core) and 3,917 (multi-core), as expected, CPU scores virtually didn’t vary. The Intel CPU got 6,088 points on the OpenCL compute test, though, 22% higher than on macOS.

That’s not the huge 50% bump seen on OpenCL vs. Metal in macOS itself, but still a significant increase. I’ll discuss what this may matter in the Veredict section.

Before that, I should note that, in Windows, the GTX1650 performs slightly worse than or as good as on Linux. In D:OS, using Ultra settings, I got ~100FPS in the battle scene, and around 70FPS in the market. Still more than my 60Hz display outputs, for what it’s worth, but a lower performance anyway.

I also tested the UHD 630, and it performed about the same as in macOS. Framerates floated around 20-25FPS mostly, with very rare peaks of 30FPS or lower.

The major aspect to consider in the user experience field, I think, is not exactly related to performance. Windows 11 is good enough for most uses, on Macs comparable to my Hackintosh, so this shouldn’t be an issue.

However, the interface is so different that you really need to ask yourself whether you like it before making the jump. That’s not a mere question of the learning curve: things work differently on Windows. In my opinion, some are better, some are worse, and some are just about the same. But this really varies depending on personal taste. In order to judge which paradigm fits you best, you need to try it for a while.

Veredict

Most Macs equivalent to my Hackintosh are 2019 or 2020 models, which isn’t that long ago. While they aren’t “old Macs”, this will change soon, and choosing the best OS for when this happens is important.

To make things easier, I’ll leave a comparison table below. I have listed Geekbench scores, D:OS FPS, and perceived user experience for all OSes.

Hackintosh	macOS Catalina	macOS Sequoia	macOS Tahoe	Linux Mint	Windows 11 (GX1650)	Windows 11 (UHD 630)
Single-core	1,024	1,113	1,126	1,212	1,015	1,010
Multi-core	3,837	4,450	4,501	4,983	3,910	3,917
Compute	4,937	4,978	4,721	42,703	40,634	6,088
D:OS framerate	20-25 (V. Low)	25 (V. Low)	—	80-120 (Ultra)	70-100 (Ultra)	20-30 (V. Low)
User experience	Below average	Great	Bad	Good	Average	Below average

As for a more objective answer, for Macs comparable to my Hackintosh, I would recommend staying in macOS for now. When the final Tahoe build becomes available, install it on an external disk and give it a go. If the new OS performs poorly, just get back to Sequoia and that’s it. In case you don’t have an external drive to install, there are ways to downgrade from macOS Tahoe. Bear in mind, though, that this is not a trivial task.

Alongside that, I also recommend having a Windows or Linux installation at hand, even if on a small partition. For apps and games that don’t support the Metal API for graphics, other OSes perform better than macOS.

Best OS for Old Macs: Testing on a MacBook Pro 2012

The “best OS for old Macs” in the title isn’t just for show. This 13-year-old machine is still my secondary computer, and there are few reasons not to use it.

The 2012 model was the last fully upgradable MacBook Pro, allowing you to change the internal disk and RAM. With the proper adapter, you could even remove the DVD bay and install another storage drive.

Officially, Apple claims this model only supports 8GB of RAM, but the actual maximum is 16GB. My unit is the 13-inch i5 model, which features a dual-core 3210M Intel CPU. There is also a slightly more powerful i7 version, though this is also a dual-core. In both cases, the GPU is an integrated HD4000.

The 15-inch variants come with quad-core CPUs, which are significantly more powerful. They also feature dedicated Nvidia 650M GPUs, with 512MB or 1GB of RAM. I’ll talk about those in the Veredict section for this Mac as well.

macOS Catalina

For this model, version 10.15 Catalina was the last officially supported macOS. That doesn’t mean, though, you’re limited to it — but more on that shortly.

Regarding the numbers, the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro scored 526 in single-core performance and 1,150 in multi-core. This will set the baseline that I’ll use to comment the other results.

GPU results will also set the baseline. In Geekbench, the OpenCL score for macOS Catalina was 971 points. With graphics set to Very Low, I was able to get 20FPS in the square and 26FPS in the boss battle.

Using Catalina felt slightly snappier than Ventura, my daily driver for this machine. The difference, however, wasn’t significant enough to make me consider downgrading.

macOS Ventura

Speaking of Ventura, this is the newest macOS I would recommend running on this machine. Partly because it performs poorly on Sonoma and later, partly because the still-unfixed OCLP bugs are still too many.

Looking at the numbers, one would say Ventura performs about the same as Catalina. The single-core mark in Geekbench is 521, with a 1,190 multi-core score. It’s possible that the difference I noticed comes merely from running a freshly installed OS, compared to a worn one.

Regarding graphics, performance is also about the same, with a 963 OpenCL score in Geekbench. D:OS ran slightly better: average framerate was 20-25FPS in the boss battle and 25-30FPS in the square.

While Ventura is by no means incredibly faster in this Mac, it runs better than what you would expect. It’s valid to mention that this model is among the longest-supported modern Macs, receiving updates for seven years. Even so, you can extend that to a decade with OCLP, decently running an OS that launched 10 years later.

However, the base 13-inch, i5 model is fairly limited, even with an SSD and 16GB of RAM. The CPU and GPU are constant bottlenecks, and I found myself setting the fans manually to the max speed. Otherwise, thermal throttling would be triggered by opening half a dozen tabs in any browser.

I have attached a (720p) external monitor to my MacBook, using them as third and fourth screens for my workflow. I have my e-mail client in the external display, above the laptop, which runs ClickUp on its internal screen. Using Barrier (though I recommend Deskflow, its successor), I can make up for the lack of Universal Control support.

I can’t, however, take the MacBook with me, leaving the larger and heavier Nitro 5 at home, in work trips. Or even if I just want to work in a cafe, for instance. I have tried that a few times, only to find myself frequently frustrated by the sluggishness. Running macOS Ventura, the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro can still do many things — but one at a time.

To run macOS Ventura with a decent multitasking experience, I strongly recommend getting the 15-inch version of this model. You will also get a bigger screen and more battery life, while keeping all the pros of the smaller model. In any case, though, there’s no way around the 16GB of RAM and SSD requirements.

Linux Mint

Or you could, well, make the 13-inch model way more usable with a Linux distro. Everything works out of the box, except for the Wi-Fi module. Even then, the live disk does include the Wi-Fi driver. It’s just not installed by default, because it’s not open-source.

In Geekbench, it scores 682 in single-core and 1,476 in multi-core. That’s, respectively, 29.6% and 28.3% better than in macOS Catalina. In my opinion, the boost of almost 30% in CPU performance should be enough of an argument to switch.

This is the sole occasion in which I don’t have an OpenCL score to provide. That’s because even the latest Linux driver for the HD4000 lacks proper OpenCL support. I don’t think this will be a deal-breaker for most, especially because you can always use Vulkan instead. In any case, you have been warned.

Also on the GPU topic, performance in D:OS wasn’t terrible, but not anything to write home about either. In both the boss battle and the market square, framerates were in the lower 20s with graphics on Very Low.

I wouldn’t say Mint is necessarily the best Linux distro for older Macs, because different formats create different OS needs. A small menu bar may be fine even on an iMac, since it’s not the most important UI element. A small task bar, on the other hand, even if at the bottom, makes you move the cursor too much. In this case, other distributions, or at least other desktop environments, might work better. For MacBooks, however, Linux Mint with Cinnamon works just fine.

Probably the sole reason I didn’t switch to Linux in this Mac yet is lacking the time to do so. While I like how Mint works out-of-the-box, I’m not a fan of Cinnamon, its default desktop environment. Even after I find something that suits my needs, I’ll still need to migrate data, install apps, and so on. This could be a fun weekend project for the near future, though.

Windows 11

Installing Windows 11 on this specific Mac model is a nightmare. If you manage to survive the procedure, however, things mostly run smoothly. Literally: Windows 11 is way more fluid on this Mac than you would expect.

While scores aren’t as high as in Mint, they’re still higher than in macOS. You get 615 points for single-core performance, a solid 16.9% increase over Catalina. The multi-core mark is 1,319, an also respectable 14.7% improvement.

The GPU score, however, is virtually the same: 971 points, a single point over the Catalina mark. Don’t expect this Mac to perform any 4K video editing on Windows, at least not without taking a long time.

Due to a lack of time, I wasn’t able to measure the specific framerates for D:OS. However, they are about the same as on Mint and both macOS versions.

My experience with Windows 11 on the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro isn’t too different from running it on the Hackintosh. Performance differences apart, that is. Personally, I dislike it, but that’s a matter of taste more of it being unusable.

I can’t assure the fluidity would remain the same after a few months, though. Windows is known to become increasingly slower as time passes. This isn’t likely to be your experience running macOS or a Linux distro.

Veredict

Before I move to my commentary, the comparison table:

2012 MacBook Pro	Catalina	Ventura	Linux Mint	Windows 11
Single-core	526	521	682	615
Multi-core	1,150	1,190	1,476	1,319
Compute	971	963	—	971
D:OS framerate	20-26	20-30	~20	—
User experience	Below average	Average	Good	Below average

For the 2012 13-inch MacBook Pro, Linux distros are definitely the best OS choices, even better than old macOS versions. They’ll run smoother, battery might last longer, and you will still get OS updates for years to come. While I do recommend keeping a small macOS partition with Catalina or newer versions, they’re not daily-driver material anymore.

There are some downsides to that: limited software support, for instance, user interfaces differing too much. For the former, a small Windows (or, again, macOS) partition suffices. For the latter, all you have to do is choose a distro that you like. Some suggestions are Ubuntu Budgie, Elementary OS, PearOS, and ZorinOS. They all look and feel similar to macOS, in varied degrees.

You can also install one of the more traditional distros, like regular Ubuntu, Mint, or Fedora, alongside WhiteSur. WhiteSur is, to my knowledge, the most complete “macOS makeup pack” for Linux, and it’s compatible with several distros.

There are two last things to consider. Firstly, interface-wise, the macOS menu bar is a core component of how we interact with our Macs. To this day, I haven’t found a single distro that adequately implements it. There’s Ubuntu Unity, surely, but most Linux apps completely ignore the menu bar even when running on this distro.

Secondly, keyboard shortcuts. Once you replace the Ctrl key with Command, it’s hard to go back. The most elegant solution, I think, is Kinto, which uses scripts to set up Mac keyboards in Linux distros. There’s also a Windows version, though I personally haven’t tested it.

Final Thoughts

“Which is the best OS for old Macs?” is a question that has many different answers. In a few cases, it will trickle down to personal taste. In others, one OS will undisputedly stand out in comparison to others.

While I have explored some options in this article, there are even more you can try. You may be interested in FydeOS, which is essentially a de-Googled ChromeOS Flex. And, for those who would like to check the grandparent of macOS, FreeBSD is still a thing. In any case, you’re far from underserved of alternatives.