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What Should I Buy? Parallels or Fusion?
InfoWorld asked me to do a head-to-head review of Parallels and Fusion. That review appeared today.
As a frequent user of both virtualization packages, I really enjoyed this review since it gave me an excuse to dig deep on some things and to talk to the product managers for both.
One thing is clear: there’s some stiff competition between Parallels and VMWare and the users are the winners. These are both great products that perform well. VMWare has a performance advantage—especially when you need multi-core performance. Parallels, I think, has a slight advantage in usability and a pretty big advantage—for now—in the way snapshots work.
Read the review for details, but here’s the bottom line:
- VMware Fusion is a solid virtualization package for OS X that builds on VMware’s long experience but offers a native Mac look and feel. Support for SMP and 64-bit operating systems make it the top choice for power users. Support for Windows is strong, but some switchers will find the sparse set of GUI-based management tools a turn-off.
- Parallels Desktop is an intuitive, easy-to-use virtualization platform for switchers who need to run Windows applications alongside OS X. Convenient, GUI-based tools and a quick Windows install are the product’s real strengths. Lack of support for 64-bit operating systems and some versions of Linux won’t matter to most users, but could be important to developers and others pushing the platform to the limit.
Both packages cost $79.
Posted by windley on October 22, 2007 3:02 PM
Comment from vrtulobjeq at October 22, 2007 7:09 PM
Excuse me I'm at a loss, but why do you need to buy either when Boot Camp is included in Mac osx ?
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something ?
Comment from sson at October 22, 2007 10:19 PM
Nice review... I own both and agree with your conclusions. FYI, Amazon currently has VMWare Fusion for $45 after a $20 mail-in rebate. Also, VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org) is similar to both these products. It is, however, missing many of the advance features of Parallels/Fusion but you can't beat its price.
As for the Boot Camp question, Parallels/Fusion/VirtualBox allow you to run guest OS's (such as Windows) at the same time without rebooting. In fact, Parallels/Fusion both do a fairly good job making Windows apps look native on the OS X desktop (see the "Coherence and Unity" section of the review). Given parallels/Fusion and OS X's support for X11 apps the Mac really provides the ideal desktop for the IT professional, IMHO. The one desktop to rule them all!
Comment from Brad Baldwin at October 22, 2007 10:56 PM
Thanks Phil. I have been a Parallels user since it's pre-launch days. Better than Boot Camp for me, I like running Windows inside an Apple "application" window. Parallels Tools allow me to interact better with Windows when needed. Parallels feature set continues to grow faster than I've been able to utilize. Mostly as a result that I have found little use for Windows now that I've been using my Mac for 18 months. I've found replacements for all my old programs.
Comment from Jeremy at October 24, 2007 6:38 PM
Nice review. One thing that isn't clear to me, one thing that would stop me from buying either package, is whether my copy of Windows will "work" with the virtualization. Oh, I do have a legit copy, no worries. But it is old. XP Pro, but pre service pack 1.
Will the virtualization software take care of all those upgrades for me automatically? SP1? SP2? Windows Genuine Advantage? Etc.? Or is that something I still have to do myself?
Similarly, I have actually reached the end of my Microsoft-granted number of reinstalls for this copy of Windows. I think they allow 20 or so. But over the past 5 years I have built and rebuilt my machine so many times, wiped it, re-installed so many times, that the last time I did the re-install, I had to manually phone up Microsoft and tell them that, yes, I was indeed me, and no I wasn't pirating anything. They gave me the unlock code over the phone, and everything was fine. But it was an extra step in the process that might complicate things for virtualization. Are they going to be able to handle this, if I install my current copy of Windows?
I really do not want to buy Visa.
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