16GB is the minimum for multiple VMs

Yes—noticeably.

8GB is barely enough for your host OS and one lightweight VM. Try running two or three VMs, and you’ll hit swapping immediately. Performance tanks, everything gets sluggish, and you waste time waiting.

With 16GB, you can comfortably allocate 4GB per VM and still give the host 4GB. That’s a day-and-night difference for multitasking. Even light Docker or Linux VMs benefit. If you’re running Windows VMs or anything memory-intensive, 16GB is the floor, not the ceiling.

Don’t overthink it. If you run multiple VMs regularly, upgrade to 16GB. It’s the cheapest performance gain you’ll get.

Your VMs will thank you.