32GB RAM is the sweet spot for dev VMs

It’s a big jump.

Going from 16GB to 32GB is the single best upgrade for running virtual machines for software development. With 16GB, you’re constantly fighting the host OS for memory. Give the VM 8GB and the host is limping along on 8GB. Give it 4GB and the VM is swapping. Either way, everything slows down.

With 32GB, you can give a development VM 12-16GB comfortably. The host still has plenty of room for your browser, IDE, and Slack (which somehow eats 2GB by itself). Even running two lightweight VMs side by side works fine. Docker containers? No problem.

Do you need 64GB? Rarely. That’s for people running three heavyweight VMs or doing something insane like Windows development on a Mac. Most of us stop noticing the RAM bottleneck once we hit 32GB.

Don’t overthink it.