The short answer
Wilcom does support running it in Parallels Desktop on an Apple silicon Mac, with Windows 11 on ARM. It asks for 16 GB of memory at minimum and recommends 32 GB. You buy Parallels and a Windows 11 licence separately from Hatch.
What Hatch Embroidery 4 does: Four levels, each including the ones below: Organizer, Personalizer (lettering and monograms), Composer (auto-digitizing) and Digitizer (full digitizing).
Price: One-time: Organizer $199, Personalizer $299, Composer $699, Digitizer $1,199 (list prices on the pricing page), or FlexPay at $99 a month for Composer and Digitizer; 30-day trial. On a Mac you also need Parallels and a Windows 11 licence.
Sources, read September 24, 2026: Mac statement, Pricing, System requirements.
Your options on a Mac
| Option | On a Mac | Digitizing | How it is sold |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satinsmith (ours) | Native Apple silicon app (M1 or newer), macOS 14 or later | Yes, from Digitizer | Free tier with five exports a month |
| Embrilliance | Runs natively on Mac and Windows | Yes, with StitchArtist (sold separately) | One-time purchases, bought separately and added together: Essentials $159 list ($139 in a sale running when checked) |
| StitchBuddy | Native Mac app from the Mac App Store, macOS 12 or later | No | Free download (saves designs of up to 1,000 stitches) |
| Ink/Stitch | Extension for Inkscape (1.0.2 or later) on macOS 12 or later, with Apple silicon and Intel downloads | Yes, inside Inkscape | Free and open source (GPL-3.0) |
The full comparison has what each one is good at, its limits and its sources.
Bringing your files
Hatch saves its working designs as .EMB files. Satinsmith's library shows them as preview only: the picture Hatch saved inside the file, its title and its number of colors. It can't edit them or read their stitches.
To work on a Hatch design in a Mac app, export it from Hatch in a machine format such as PES, DST, JEF or VP3 first. Satinsmith opens those free, and so do the other options in the table.
Which fits?
- You already own Hatch, or take a class that uses it, and your Mac has 16 GB of memory or more: keep Hatch and run it in Parallels.
- You don't want Windows on your Mac: choose one of the native options in the table, and try it with your own files first.
Try Satinsmith with your own files
Opening, previewing and checking designs is free, with five exports a month. Download Satinsmith for an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later, or start with the free library lesson and its practice files.
Satinsmith is not affiliated with any company named here. Product names are trademarks of their owners and are used only to identify their products.