You may have heard that Macintosh OSX is just Linux with a prettier interface. That’s not actually true. But OSX is built in part on an open source Unix derivative called FreeBSD. And until recently, FreeBSD’s co-founder Jordan Hubbard served as director of Unix technology at Apple.

Is macOS based on UNIX or Linux?

macOS is a UNIX 03-compliant operating system certified by The Open Group. It has been since 2007, starting with MAC OS X 10.5. The only exception was Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, but compliance was regained with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Is macOS based off of Linux?

Mac OS X is not Linux and is not built on Linux. The OS is built on a Free BSD UNIX but with a different kernel and device drivers. You can get access to the UNIX command line thru the terminal window – very very handy. Many familiar UNIX apps and utilities are available.