dosbox vs dosemu
 

I don't have experience with either. Just wondering what folks think.

Dosbox run faster and is easier to setup and get running than dosemu, at least that has been my experience. Actually, I prefer doeemu when I can get it to work, but it has never worked (for me) under Slackware 12.2.

I started using dosbox for an old dos program. CPU cycles were high, 10-20%. You can tweak the settings using the config file. This changed when I installed dosemu which goes down to 1-5% for the same dos program.

Some dosemu features can be turned off ie net, sbemu, aspi, sdl etc in the compile-settings file before compiling

Well, I've been using dosbox for a few days now and it seems to be pretty good and straight forward.
All I need it for is playing old dos games :)

Yeah for old dos games dosbox is king, since it's designed specifically for that purpose.

It depends on what you do you really need. If you just want to play some good old DOS game stick with the dosbox - it's easier to install and maintain. On the other hand if you need to test some DOS software, do any DOS development or try to use Windows 3.11 you'd have to use dosemu as it doesn't "emulate" DOS but is a (very limited but useful) virtual machine.

Dosbox
 

If you need features try DOSbox ..

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