🧩 QEMU Performance Comparison Summary

Host: Termux on Android (ARM64 / aarch64)
Device: Android phone running Termux
Virtualization: QEMU emulation (no KVM acceleration)

🖥️ Virtual Machines Compared

VM	QEMU Command	Architecture	Notes
🟢 ARM64 Guest	qemu-system-aarch64	ARM64 on ARM64	Native architecture, efficient
🔴 x86_64 Guest	qemu-system-x86_64	x86 emulated on ARM	Heavy software emulation via TCG

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⚙️ Test 1: Disk Write Speed (dd)

Metric	ARM64 Guest	x86_64 Guest	Winner
Command	dd if=/dev/zero of=testfile bs=1M count=512 conv=fdatasync	Same	—
Result	46.0 MB/s	14.4 MB/s	🟢 ARM64 3.2× faster

📘 Meaning: Disk I/O on the ARM VM is over 3× faster due to less emulation and better VirtIO efficiency.

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🧠 Test 2: CPU Speed (sysbench cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000)

Metric	ARM64 Guest	x86_64 Guest	Winner
Events per second	187.9	117.0	🟢 ARM64 1.6× faster
Total time	10.0 s	10.0 s	—
Avg latency	5.24 ms	8.43 ms	🟢 ARM64

📘 Meaning: ARM guest performs CPU operations ~60% faster; x86 guest suffers heavy emulation overhead.

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🧮 Test 3: Memory Speed (sysbench memory run)

Metric	ARM64 Guest	x86_64 Guest	Winner
Total operations	3,167,306	667,127	🟢 ARM64
Transfer rate	306.7 MiB/s	64.6 MiB/s	🟢 ARM64 4.7× faster

📘 Meaning: ARM64 guest accesses memory much faster — emulating x86 memory operations slows the x86 VM drastically.

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🌐 Test 4: Network Speed (speedtest-cli)

Metric	ARM64 Guest	x86_64 Guest	Winner
Download	2.76 Mbit/s	2.19 Mbit/s	🟢 ARM64
Upload	7.90 Mbit/s	4.42 Mbit/s	🟢 ARM64
Ping	255 ms	329 ms	🟢 ARM64

📘 Meaning: The ARM guest handles network packets faster and with lower latency; x86 emulation slows network I/O.

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🧩 Overall Comparison

Category	ARM64 Guest	x86_64 Guest	Relative Speed
🧠 CPU	187.9 events/s	117.0 events/s	+61%
💾 Disk Write	46.0 MB/s	14.4 MB/s	+220%
🧮 Memory	306.7 MiB/s	64.6 MiB/s	+375%
🌐 Network Upload	7.9 Mbit/s	4.4 Mbit/s	+80%
🌐 Network Download	2.76 Mbit/s	2.19 Mbit/s	+26%
⏱️ Ping (lower better)	255 ms	329 ms	−22% latency

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🏁 Final Verdict

Category	Winner	Why
CPU Performance	🟢 ARM64	Native instruction execution
Memory Performance	🟢 ARM64	No architecture translation
Disk I/O	🟢 ARM64	Faster VirtIO + less emulation
Network	🟢 ARM64	Lower latency + better throughput
Overall Efficiency	🟢 ARM64 (≈3× faster overall)	Runs natively on your phone’s ARM CPU

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✅ Conclusion

The ARM64 guest (qemu-system-aarch64) running inside Termux on Android (ARM64) is clearly superior in every category — CPU, memory, disk, and network.

Running x86_64 VMs on Termux is possible, but much slower due to full software emulation (TCG).

For best results on mobile ARM devices, use ARM64-based images when virtualizing with QEMU in Termux.

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🧰 Example Setup Reference

ARM64 VM Command:

qemu-system-aarch64 \
  -machine virt,accel=tcg \
  -cpu cortex-a53 \
  -m 2048 \
  -smp 2 \
  -drive file=debian-arm64.img,format=qcow2,if=virtio \
  -bios $PREFIX/share/qemu/edk2-aarch64-code.fd \
  -nographic \
  -serial mon:stdio \
  -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0 \
  -netdev user,id=net0 \
  -boot c

x86_64 VM Command:

qemu-system-x86_64 \
  -machine q35 \
  -m 1024 \
  -smp 2 \
  -cpu max \
  -drive format=qcow2,file=debian-x86_64.img \
  -netdev user,id=n1,hostfwd=tcp::3030-:3030 \
  -device virtio-net,netdev=n1 \
  -nographic \
  -serial mon:stdio

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Created and tested using QEMU inside Termux on an ARM64 Android device.