To add Windows, Linux, or another operating system to your Mac, Parallels Desktop creates a virtual machine (VM) or a virtual copy of your current Windows PC inside your Mac. You can then install Windows in the virtual machine, just as you would install any operating system on a regular computer. Run multiple OSes at the same time, all on your Mac. It’s like two computers in one!
- Vmware Fusion Vs Parallels
- Parallels Desktop Vs Vmware Fusion
- Parallels Or Vmware Fusion
- Parallels Or Vmware Fusion For Mac 2017
- Parallels Or Vmware
This comparison was tested on an eight-core, 2.66 GHz MacPro running Mac OS X 10.4.10, Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (build 4560) and VMware Fusion 1.0 (build 51348). Fusion and Parallels were both set to 1,024 MB of system memory and a 32 GB hard disk. Parallels ($79.99 for one Mac): VMware Fusion and Parallels are very similar, but Parallels guides you through the installation process more closely. It also focuses on home users, who simply need. Neither VMware Fusion nor Oracle VirtualBox can provide a well performing, smooth experience as Parallels. The reason is simple that Parallels can access the graphic card that OS X already uses meaning you can play 3D games and use Adobe CS. I have parallels, but I would prefer not to buy the vmware fusion to run on the mac. Wondering if its worth it to run parallels to run windows, then run vmware inside. I have 2 GB of RAM and could upgrade to 4 GB (max on the laptop) but everything associated with a mac is really expensive. The tests compared VMware Fusion 2.0.1, with Parallels Desktop for Mac 4.0 (build 3540), running Mac OS X 10.5.5. (In reading the release notes of both Parallels Desktop 4.0 build 3810, and VMware Fusion 2.0.2, it does not appear that the changes in these versions would significantly alter the performance results we found.).
- Open Windows applications side by side with your macOS applications, without having to restart your Mac
- Copy and paste text or drag and drop objects between Mac and Windows.
- Run Windows games and other 3D applications.
- Transfer all your data from a PC and use it on your Mac.
- Easily share files, devices, and other resources between Windows and Mac.
- Install other operating systems, such as trial versions of Windows, Linux, another copy of macOS, and free virtual appliances—and use them together.
- And much more…
There are several ways to install Windows (or any other operating system) in a virtual machine, and Parallels Desktop makes it easy to get started within minutes.
If you need Windows on your Mac, Parallels Desktop can help you download and install Windows 10. All you need to do is follow our Installation Assistant and click “Install Windows.”
Or you can provide your own Microsoft Windows license key, purchase Windows directly from within Parallels Desktop, or transfer an existing Boot Camp partition with Windows already installed.
With Parallels Desktop, you can switch between Mac and Windows without ever needing to reboot your computer.
If you have already installed Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, or Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp, you can set Parallels Desktop to run Windows from the Boot Camp Partition or import Windows and your data from Boot Camp into Parallels Desktop as a new virtual machine.
To use Windows from Boot Camp, install Parallels Desktop and follow the Installation Assistant.
Play your Windows-only game on a Mac using Parallels Desktop. Parallels Desktop even has a virtual machine setting dedicated to gaming to optimize performance. With ongoing support for DirectX and OpenGL, many popular games and game engines are supported within Parallels Desktop. Download a free 14-day trial of Parallels Desktop and see if your desired game is supported.
Hardware
- A Mac computer with an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Core i9, Intel Core M or Xeon processor
- Minimum 4 GB of memory, 8 GB is recommended
- 600 MB of disk space on the boot volume (Macintosh HD) for Parallels Desktop application installation
- Additional disk space for virtual machines (varies on operating system and applications installed, e.g. at least 16GB is required for Windows 10)
- SSD drive is recommended for better performance
- Internet connection for product activation and select features
Software
- macOS Mojave 10.14
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 or later
- macOS Sierra 10.12.6 or later
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.6 or later
Guest Operating Systems
- Windows 10
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 8
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows 7 (SP0-SP1)
- Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Vista Home, Business, Ultimate, Enterprise (SP0-SP2)
- Windows Server 2003 R2 (SP0-SP2)
- Windows XP (SP0-SP3)
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Windows 2000 Server SP4
- MS-DOS 6.22 **
- Boot2Docker
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7, 6, 5
- CentOS Linux 7, 6, 5
- Fedora Linux 29, 28, 27, 26
- Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 17.10, 16.04 LTS, 14.04 LTS, 12.04 LTS
- Debian GNU/Linux 9.4, 9, 8, 7
- Suse Linux Enterprise 12 SP3, 11 SP3, 11 SP2
- OpenSUSE Linux 15, 42.3, 13.2, 13.1, 12.3
- Linux Mint 19, 18, 17
- Kali 2018.2, 2018.1, 2
- Elementary 5.0, 0.4
- Manjaro 17
- Mageia 6, 5, 4, 3
- Gentoo Linux **
- Solaris 11.3, 11, 10 **
- openBSD 6 **
- FreeBSD 11.1, 10, 10, 9, 8 **
- openVZ 7
- eComStation 2, 1.2 **
- ReactOS 0.4 **
- Android OS*
- macOS Mojave 10.14.x
- macOS High Sierra 10.13.x
- macOS Sierra 10.12.x
- OS X El Capitan 10.11.x
- OS X Yosemite 10.10.x
- OS X Mavericks 10.9.x
- OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.x
- OS X Lion 10.7.x
- OS X Lion Server 10.7.x
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server 10.6.x
- Mac OS X Leopard Server 10.5.x
- * — Only the one downloaded with help of Installation Assistant.
** — Parallels tools are not available for this operating system.
Note: Parallels Desktop for Mac emulates PC hardware, so operating systems that are not present in this list can work as well. They are not on the list because we didn't test them in our lab yet or we found some critical issues. You can download Parallels Desktop Trial here and install an operating system of your choice and if it doesn't work and you believe it should be supported, let us know at Parallels Forum.
Need Parallels Desktop for your team? Check out Parallels Desktop Business Edition.
Parallels offers exclusive discounts for educational students currently enrolled in a qualified educational institution or professional educators who are currently employed. Educational discounts can save users up to 50% off by verifying their eligibility.
Parallels Desktop Pro Edition is packed with extra features, including:
- More Power: Parallels Desktop Pro Edition gives your virtual machines more processing power, up to 128 GB vRAM and 32 vCPUs per virtual machine.
- Network Conditioner – Simulate various internet connectivity speeds to test your applications.
- Visual Studio Plug-In – Develop software in one virtual machine and test in others—with just one click.
- Nested Virtualization Support – Support is available for the following:
- VMware ESXi virtual machines
- Xen and kernel-based virtual machines in versions of Linux that support Xen and KV
- Android emulator for Visual Studio in Windows
- iPhone emulator for Visual Studio in Windows
- Xamarin.Android in Windows
- Android Studio in Windows
- Embarcadero RAD Studio in Windows
- Docker for Windows
- (experimental) Microsoft Visual Studio + TwinCat 3
- VMware ESXi virtual machines
Learn more about Parallels Desktop Pro Edition.
- Download Parallels Desktop.
- Open Parallels Desktop.app from the Applications folder and choose File » New.
- Now you can create a new virtual machine for Mac, including a Windows VM on Mac.
- Get Windows from Microsoft or install freely available operating systems such as Ubuntu, Fedora, or other Linux systems supported by Parallels Desktop. See all Guest Operating Systems »
Parallels offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all purchases made on parallels.com. If you purchased this from another retailer, please check their return policy.
User guides and resources can be found on our Technical Documentation and Resources page. Or go to Support.
Active3 years, 1 month ago
Has anyone used both of these? Is one clearly superior to the other? I notice they are the same price. Any pros and cons?
HennesVmware Fusion Vs Parallels
60k77 gold badges9494 silver badges144144 bronze badges
PowerApp101PowerApp101
migrated from serverfault.comMar 27 '11 at 7:36
This question came from our site for system and network administrators.
10 Answers
I've used each and currently use Parallels.
Originally I went with Parallels since it was the first. Then I switched to VMWare since it used to have the better memory management. And now I use Parallels again.
VMWare tends to be more polished and have fewer annoyance bugs but, currently, Parallels is faster (I think I read 20%) and has better memory management. I run Windows Server 2008 as a workstation and primarily do software development with Visual Studio in there.
I did notice a big improvement when I switched to Parallels, but I also switched to Windows Server 2008 from Vista at the same time. YMMV.
BTW, no matter which product you go with, RAM is the most important resource. Try and get at least 4gigs in your Mac and allocate around 1.5 to 2 gigs to Windows.
Also, avoid using the 3D acceleration in either product unless you know you need it. I've had tons of issues with it...
brendanjerwin
If you really want good performance, you might want to ditch the VM approach and go with Boot Camp, which is essentially a partitioning tool with some extra software that makes it easy to switch between OSX and Windows. You'll have to reboot into Windows of course, but it will make full use of your system hardware and also bypass the audio / video driver problems that always seem to crop up with VMs in my experience.
gareth_bowlesgareth_bowles
Parallels Desktop Vs Vmware Fusion
Ok, here is the skinny.
You should choose VMware Fusion if any of the following apply to you:
- You use VMware Server / ESX / Workstation / Player elsewhere.
- Use the VMware appliances from VMware's website.
- You wish to create VMware appliances.
- You have stock in VMware, Inc.
Otherwise you can use Parallels, or may I suggest Virtualbox? Parallels and Virtualbox tend to have better performance than VMware across all platforms that I have used (Virtualbox: Linux, Windows, OS X) (Parallels: OS X).
On another note, you won't find any benchmark stats comparing VM software because VMware's licenses forbid the posting of benchmark stats without their permission.
If this anecdotal evidence is worth anything, on OS X 10.5.6 and VMware Fusion 2.0.4 I have been having major Windows Server 2003 file system corruption and OS X kernel panics. Happened 3 times in the past week, having to reinstall everything multiple times. Either way you go, be sure to use the snapshot features!
Bryan RehbeinBryan Rehbein
I have used both a little. If you are using Vmware on your servers, then creating Vmware VMs is a useful advantage.
ZoredacheZoredache17.7k77 gold badges4444 silver badges6868 bronze badges
I've not had a great deal of experience with Parallels so can't really compare it with VMware Fusion. I use VMware Fusion daily at home and I picked it mainly because at work I use Windows hardware running VMware Workstation and any virtual machines it uses, I can easily use in VMWare Fusion. The format is very portable like that.
In terms of performance, I'd say the VM's tend to run slightly faster on Mac than on PC. Also, as brendanjerwin mentions, memory is important. I run a simple Windows XP VM with 512MB and that runs great. My work VMs tend to have 1GB to 1.5GB allocated, and again, they run well with VMware Fusion.
Also, if you're going to run VMs, put them on an external hard drive, as Jeff Atwood has suggested previously, since that'll help with drive access. Running VMs off of a local drive can really kill performance as you can end with contention with the main OS. I've run off both large capacity 7200rpm drives and small 5400rpm passport drives with no problems.
I know that's a bit away from what you were asking, but thought it might be relevant.
PaukPauk87411 gold badge77 silver badges1717 bronze badges
Over the years I have used 3 products; Parallels, VMWare Fusion, and VirtualBox. From a strictly user standpoint, I found Parallels and VMWare Fusion to be roughly equivalent. Both were a snap to setup a new VM, they were both easy to move VMs from one system to another. And both also had much the same feature set.
For my use, I found VirtualBox to be quite superior. It feels faster, has a lot more configuration options, and is completely free. It is more difficult to move VMs around, simply due to the fact that the virtual disk and machine are separate entities that are connected through a config file.
Scott PackScott Pack1,01311 gold badge99 silver badges1010 bronze badges
Parallels Or Vmware Fusion
I recently used Parallels to run a Windows application (Shockwave flash executable). The application started, but was only partly navigable. The audio and video bundled in the application did not play, only the static content (pictures). I will try VMWare as soon as I find my misplaced Windows XP CD.
BrianBrian
I have used both Parallels and VMware Fusion and currently use VMware Fusion. The primary reason for my change is that the version upgrades (version 2 to 3, version 3 to 4) of Parallels seem to continuously corrupt my virtual hard drive image. I have had problems with the version upgrades every time new Parallels software is released (been a user since version1 was released). Each time, I'd be forced to reimport my old VHD image, reactivate and reinstall everything.
As a side note, I'm not using a standard Windows XP image - my XP license and image was one converted up from an old copy of Microsoft VirtualPC for Mac that I owned. That could be why I've experienced problems.
Parallels Or Vmware Fusion For Mac 2017
VMware Fusion uses the same standard VMDK virtual hard drive format along with all the other VMware products, meaning you transport your image between workstations, platforms, etc. This is certainly an good feature - especially if you like to test out different operating systems.
virtuallyhere
I do not see this mentioned yet, but if you own a iMac or other Mac hardware configuration with an ATI card, the current OS X System Update DOES NOT ALLOW 3d Acceleration with VMWare Fusion 2. I personally feel that VMWare did a poor job with their support of Mac users in this regard - there should have been some sort of email to inform their user community to hold off on the System update until driver issues could be worked out and patched with ATI and Apple. It was an 'after the fact' announcement on a VMWare blog - not an email to the user base. Users that have ATI 4850 on iMac like myself are still waiting on a fix. I love the 'Unity' feature and the features that allow moving the Virtual Machine around on different disks and the performance of VMWare, but this bad support move, just may have me delete and go to Parallels.
mctsonicmctsonic
You're lucky - both are great products, Parallels is supposed to be faster overall with Fusion having slightly better functionality - just pick one and you'll be happy.
Personally I love the portability of VMWare VM files so went for Fusion but you can't mess this one up :)
![Parallels or vmware fusion Parallels or vmware fusion](/uploads/1/3/3/8/133898188/306907201.jpg)
2,45411 gold badge1717 silver badges1818 bronze badges
Parallels Or Vmware
![Fusion Fusion](https://www1.pcmag.com/media/images/377728-vmware-fusion-7-for-mac-installation.jpg)