I was originally leaning toward a gaming laptop with a powerful GPU, but since I’m a student and need good battery life and mobility, a Mac seems like a better option. I also plan to develop some 3D games and create devlogs. I haven’t found many people talking about this online, but does Godot work well on a MacBook? I’m currently leaning toward the M4, and my budget is $1,000. What should I go for?
Generally speaking Macs are pretty nice. The only issues I had with them is when some part of the hardware gets broken, which sucks a lot because unlike a normal PC you can’t repair it yourself.
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I just wanted to ask whether I’ll face any trouble with 3D development in Godot on mac. I’ve heard and read from some people that mac is not very good for Godot development, but most of those comments are from 2-3 years ago. I want to know if things have changed and whether Godot works well on Mac now.
sorry for posting twice, I was just trying to figure out how replies on forums here works
According to Godot 2025 Community Poll, about 15% of Godot developers use MacOS.
I haven’t tried myself so can’t speak from experience, but this is a significant portion and should indicate that there is no real big issues with developing on a Mac.
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it would be a good idea to read these before deciding:
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No Macs are evil. 
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I used a Macbook Pro for my first year of using Godot. I also had a gaming tower that I tested on. This was like 3-4 years ago now. I had no major issues, other than in 3.5 my games suddenly got smaller. However that’s no longer and issue. I personally like Macs a lot, but I also like that MacOS is now a version of Linux.
The biggest question is what kind of 3D games do you want to make? If you want to make something with high fidelity and realism you may run into issues with a Macbook. Depends on the GPU really. Macs have good ones, but you can’t swap them out for an upgrade if you find you need a better one.
If you just want to make some fun 3D games and learn Godot on it, a Mac is plenty powerful and the Godot engine runs fine on it.
Playing exported games on MacOS is a little more annoying these days. Used to be you could open an unsigned app and just tell the OS to run it. Now you have to go into the OS and tell it to run something, then run it. Having said that, the engine takes care of the exporting for you.
One benefit to a Mac is you can export iOS games. You have to have a Mac to do that as of the last time I tried it (last year).
Really, I would not base your purchasing decision on Godot. If you like the Mac and it’s within your price point, it’s a great computer and and that should be enough. Godot will run fine, and Godot is literally getting better every week.
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Thank you for sharing reliable information.
Thank you, will for sure check them out.
Yes I’ll be only creating some low poly indie 3d fun games, I’ve heard and read from some people that mac is not very good for Godot development, but most of those comments are from 2-3 years ago & thats why I was worried, this clears all the confusion & I’ll most probably go for a mac, thank you.
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I’ve used my grandmother’s mac for game developement for an year or two when I started using godot, and although the hardware is itself really good, I’d never go back to using it. I mean, if you want to do simple things it’s fine, but as soon as you want to do more interesting stuff (things like compute shaders etc.) you stumble across countless compatibility issues, and it can be really frustrating. Also, mac is stupidly expensive and repairing costs are terrible so if your budget is around 1000$, I wouldn’t reccomand it. Personally, I had a similar budget of 1000€, and I got a really good gaming laptop (for better performance) with a 13 gen intel i7 and an nvidia 4070 GPU with amazon second hand, but the laptop itself was new and never used, as happens most of the time
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Since when ? I thought it was still Darwin based which is a FreeBSD basis, using a monolithic kernel built on Mach microkernel, but that was a long time ago 
Just curious, if you happen to know, thanks 
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Apparently I was mistaken. It’s *nix based. I had no idea about Darwin. I used FreeBSD for years as a desktop for work. Cool.
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Have you considered linux?
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I would recommend against Linux as an OS for a primary daily use computer. Linux is an OS that requires more love and care than Windows or MacOS. Linux can be very frustrating at inopportune times. Especially when one has deadlines.
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Gotta agree here.
I’m a normie Windows 10 user, and I don’t want to fiddle with my OS. I want to develop PvP shooters.
For all the problems Windows has, it’s easy, it works, and it’s the industry standard.
In my opinion, Mac OS is just not different enough from Windows to be worth investing in, and being stuck in the Apple ecosystem is not a perk.
For Linux, while good for more tech savvy people, isn’t for a person like me. It just adds extra friction and stress, which keeps my environment unstable and makes me mentally unable to work (I’m autistic).
@beingrkn What’s stopping you from investing in a Windows PC? (besides the horrific RAM prices, which will trickle down to Mac and especially Linux regardless)
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I’ve moved everything over to Linux, not had any major issues.
F Microsoft, and F Windows at this point.
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Yes, but you’re an experienced software developer @OriginalBadBoy
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Copilot and 11 sux and Mac overpriced. Use Linux. Most Godot devs use Linux. Been using Kubuntu for years. You can dual boot to test on Windows.