Whisky is no longer actively maintained. The popular Wine frontend, which served as a free alternative to CrossOver, made it easier to run Windows games and applications on macOS.
The reason for Whiskey’s demise is pretty simple—”Whiskey harms Wine on Mac.” That’s what Wisky developer Issac Marovitz says, anyway. Whisky is a “parasitic” app that siphons sales away from CrossOver, the frontend that it’s based on. Powerful companies like Valve contribute to Wine development on Linux, but CrossOver is the primary source of funds for the macOS side of Wine—a free competitor like Whisky might be bad for macOS gaming.
“Without CodeWeavers there would be no Wine on Mac. There would be no GPTK. Hell, even Rosetta would likely be more restricted as many of the extensions added in recent months were only added due to pressure from Mac gamers … By contrast, Whisky is based on CrossOver, but we don’t produce any bespoke fixes. I, quite frankly, do not have the requisite skills or time to do so. As a result, the amount that Whisky as a whole contributes to Wine is practically zero. This is not a fair trade, and continuing this parasitic relationship could easily harm CrossOver’s continued profitability and the existence of Wine on Mac as a whole.” – Whisky Documentation
I’m one of the many people who bought CrossOver after trying Whisky—the free app served as a nice “foot in the door” for the premium app. So, I don’t completely agree with the idea that Whisky is “parasitic.” But I think that this is the right decision in the grand scheme of things. And, anyway, Marovitz is busy contributing to a native macOS port of Sonic Unleashed Recompiled. A native port of a popular game is way more exciting than Whisky, especially for gamers who aren’t willing to struggle with a fussy Wine compatibility layer (as much as I love Wine, it’s far from perfect—I’ve wasted hours of my life trying to get certain apps and games to work).
Current Whisky installations should continue working for some time. However, Whisky will not receive any updates. It won’t upgrade to future versions of Wine, and it won’t gain any new bugfixes or patches. As a result, Whisky may not be compatible with new apps or games. Steam may stop working in Whisky if Valve pushes a substantial software update, and future macOS firmware upgrades could hamper Whisky functionality.
Related
CrossOver 25 Brings Even More Windows Software to Linux & Mac
Run more Windows games and applications without Windows.
Those who currently rely on Whisky should consider switching over to CrossOver. Unfortunately, CrossOver licenses cost $74, and you need to purchase an annual upgrade license if you want to keep up with CrossOver improvements. But if you can afford it, CrossOver is genuinely the best way to financially support Wine development on macOS, and it’s a better app than Whisky.
Of course, you can also use Wine on its own if you’re willing to put in a substantial amount of blood, sweat, and tears. Be sure to read some Wine documentation before taking the plunge. It’s more intimidating than you might expect.
CrossOver
Run Windows apps and games on macOS with CrossOver, a Wine frontend. All sales of CrossOver contribute to Wine development, though you’ll need to pay an annual upgrade fee if you want to keep up with new patches and improvements.
Source: Whisky
