Parallels or VMware Fusion?

I know there must be a ton of threads about this, but since then both software has been updated tremendously, so I was wondering which software should I go out and get? I dont not want to spend alot of money on both, which I know some people who have done so.


Also if I set a Virtual Machine to use 1gb, if I close the VM I get the 1gb back correct?


Thanks a million!

 

I can report that VMWare is extremely easy to set up and use. I've been happy running it with XP Pro. Yes, you get the 1GB back when you close the virtual machine.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=145917

Both have trial periods. Why not try them out and see which you like better?

 

If your in IT...VMWare all the way. WMWare is used all over the place and its usuage is growing like wildfire. It is the king of the virtual world, which means they have much deeper pockets for support and R&D.

 

I'd go with either Fusion or Parallels.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=145917

 

I use VMware Fusion. Love it. Although I barely use Windows it's just there for testing but I like the UI of VMware much more than Parallels. VMware's UI looks much more Mac-like and Leopard-like.

 

My personal experience with vmware is that you should never use it with bootcamp partition(xp pro). The idle cpu usage on that one is ~20% and it goes up to 80% on simple apps, too. And, yes, I tried the latest version of fusion, too.
Now I tried separate installing XP vm in parallels and idle usage is only ~8%(and you can also pause it). Moreover, it is much snappier. I haven't tried separate xp vm on fusion but I'll stick with parallels for now.
Just don't use bootcamp partitions if you can help it

 

put parallels on this weekend with XP and office ... stunned by how well it works, though machine slows down a lot.

Think 2gb of ram will cure that.

 

Go higher if you can.

I went from 2GB to 3GB and it made a huge difference in Fusion. I was running Vista though.

 

Yes, I'd say get 3-4 GB RAM. 2 GB of RAM is good for Parallels/VMware Fusion, but 3-4 GB will really help. It is hard on resources to run 2 operating systems simultaneously, and the 3-4 GB will really help. Plus, RAM is much cheaper nowadays.

 

There really isn't any reason to give XP a full 1GB. It'll run happily with Office in 256MB, letting you run OS X just fine on 1GB, but 2GB is always better.

 

I bought Parallels when it came out, and tried out VMWare. I am that close to ditching Parallels and going with VMWare. Sucks to pay for another license, but VMWare is looking much better to me.

It's hard to describe but VMWare Fusion "just works". That is, it does exactly what I thought it would do with minimal fuss and muss. Parallels seems way more buggy.

Fusion mode also just works - you have some Windows apps running on your Mac and that's that. In Parallels, you have the Windows toolbar popping up all over the place. It's just not as smooth.

Other niggles:
- I keep popping up the Windows Start Menu in Parallels. I think it happens when I push the command key. I don't know how to explain it but this happens all the time when it's not intended.
- Parallels fusion mode is not smooth. You are well aware that you are running a second OS.
- Parallels had major problems with CPU usage - they say the latest version fixes that though. I have been busy trying out VMWare so not sure.
- Parallels keeps saying that my network connector was not found and I have to restart. That's ridiculous. It then keeps on working fine though.

I think the difference between Parallels and VMWare is that Parallels hosts a second OS on your hardware while Fusion keeps Windows in a neat box, completely separate from your real hardware. I like the latter approach better, Windows belongs in a box. Also Parallels has always been really buggy and the bugs are of a kind that I don't think they will ever all be fixed - it looks like a product with lots of WOW (hardware support for 3D graphics!) but it's all hacked together rather quickly with little regard to quality. VMWare is more conservative and...well just works

Conclusion: I recommend VMWare.

 

I had bought Parallels as well but ended up getting a refund from the company because it had some pretty severe bugs. The possible solutions to them were rather cryptic and involved multiple steps of editing low-level Parallels system files. Thanks but no thanks.

 

How about Boot Camp and CrossOver Mac instead?

 

I tried Parallels and Fusion, and came way preferring Fusion by a mile. From the installation to the interface, Fusion has my vote.

 

I tried crossover for the last week. The only application that I managed to install was office 2003 (word, excel, powerpoint, didnt install outlook and access) and the simple stuff worked. But when I opened an excel file with some macros it crashed.

Crossover has potential. On my intel mac Word 2003 (PC) with crossover starts faster then Word 2004 (Mac version of MS office). I know its because Office 2004 is written for PPC and slowed down by Rosetta but Crossover stuff starts really quick.

I tried installing a few other "untested" programs and non of them worked.

 

Ok, I've tested a fresh xp vm on vmware fusion - the idle usage dropped down(in comparison to bootcamp in fusion) to 5-7% which is similar to parallels but when I launch a program(internet go client) I get the following for vmware fusion:


For Parallels:


Thus I still think that parallels is faster for xp vm...
Note that Parallels vm is older and has more programs installed while the vmware one is stripped down with all the background processes off...
Vmware and parallels are both latest versions.

 

i like both, already own parallels, so ill stick with it. its been problem free since 5582, with one minor exception.

when i use my VM for dvd backup, usually with dvd decrypter/shrink, and i switch the dvdrw drive back to OSX, i get a kernel panic everytime.

i dont do that much, so it doesnt bother me much.

 

I'm using the current version of Parallels and thinking of switching as well. It has little to no support for Linux and Unix. VMWare has tools and such that make it integrate much better.
But like some others, I've paid for Parallels already, so I'm still not sure if I want to switch.
I tried to switch this past summer, but I ran into a major bug. VMWare spawned a processes called Airport (not related to wireless, as killing it had no effect on my internet) which uses 100% of a core's processing power. I googled and found that it is a bug that has been around since the beta stages of VMWare and there are no fixes for it yet, if you happen to have the issue. Even uninstalling VMWare did not remove the processes from starting.
I'll probably give VMWare a try again, once I have time to backup everything.

And Parallels screws up my bootcamp partition. :-(
My boss at work, his wife runs into a ton of kernal panics with Parallels. Not sure if this was mentioned before, but VMWare is more sandboxed than Parallels. VMWare crashing shouldn't effect OS X... on the other hand, Parallels can.

Recent benchmarks show that Parallels is significantly faster in XP (as Zendron posted) however, I don't have the link showing the benchmarks. From my experience when I was trying both, Parallells was faster, but made OS X feel slower, while VMWares image felt slower yet I didn't see OS X slowing down.


... and one more thing lol...

I hate the poor dual screen support Parallels has. I'm not sure if VMWare is any better in this regard. but I would love it if I could have the images start menu on the 2nd monitor, but be able to drag windows between the two. I don't think either supports this, and Parallels dev team is rather rude on this subject in the forums.

 

One more thing that shows the different approach. I use a 3G mobile broadband USB stick to connect to the internet when on the road. This is a pretty exotic piece of hardware that I am sure neither the designers of Parallels nor VMWare were testing their products for.

VMWare connects through the Mac's connection with no problem. Parallels doesn't connect at all - no internet inside the VM even though the Mac is connected and online. Another win for VMWare.

Parallels still seems to use 20-30% CPU when doing absolutely nothing - not sure what it is, I downloaded and installed the latest version. I have a feeling that I will never find out. though, I have had it with Parallels.

 

Thats really odd! The device used to connect to the internet should be transparent to the VM. Thats how I understood it at least, maybe I'm wrong