Parallels Desktop For Mac Vs. VMware

neilticktin writes "MacTech performed an exhaustive set of benchmarks comparing Parallels Desktop 4 to VMWare Fusion 2 to run Windows on a Mac. To tackle this problem, MacTech undertook a huge benchmarking project starting in December — over 2500 tests by stopwatch. The goal was to see how the recent versions of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop performed on different levels of Mac hardware, using XP, Vista, 64-bit, multi-procs, games, etc. ... As usual, results vary by what's important to you."

Slashdotted after 3 comments

[guruevi]

Well, apparently they shouldn't run their server in virtualization software.

Either way, I like Parallels better because it's so much better integrated (albeit more expensive) and easier to use. It also has better support for DirectX and OpenGL than VMWare which is something I needed (OpenGL).

Most importantly, it depends on which Windows

[iamacat]

Both products fail miserably at running anything older than XP. VMWare still wins here, since at least it manages to install and run 98SE successfully, while Parallels install suffers from endless crashes. But even a trivial DX game like "Lose your marbles" results in a blank screen, while it works perfectly fine in VPC for Mac on 5 year old hardware. There are many older applications and games that do not run on XP. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?

This violates VMware's EULA

[Anonymous Coward]

VMware states that you can not post benchmarks. This is why there are no benchmarks out there comparing it.

Prepare to have your page deactivated.

Sun virtualbox

[MacColossus]

I have tested all three of these products. I like Sun Virtualbox not just for price (free) but for performance.

An interesting read

[Thyamine]

I like VMWare partially because I have clients using that to virtualize servers, so I'm familiar with them as a company. I also didn't like how I couldn't completely uninstall Parallels when I tried a demo of it. It left pieces installed and I ended up rebuilding my MBP at one point partially because of that. I don't know that VMWare doesn't do the same thing, so it may be as bad as well. However I'm also more comfortable knowing that they have experience in the server world in general, and not just desktops.

slashdotted but anyone buying/using parallels 4

[gearloos]

I couldn't read the article(/.'d) but I know from personal experience (and reading countless others testimony) that Parallels 4 is a humongous heap of manure. I do own Parallels 3 and 4 but never looked back after purchasing VMware 2. When Parallels sold me the upgrade to 4.0 I backed up 4 virtual machines I had (thankfully) then proceded to spend the next 4 days trying to get it to run ANY of them. The first attempt at each upgrade to v4, following Parallels explicit insructions, resulted in total destruction of the virtual machine(unrecoverable with no way to downgrade it back to v3 to use again). I sent in about 5 support requests that are still TO THIS DAY unanswered from last November. As stated before,the article is slashdotted but I don't actually care what the results are. Parallels can keep their products (like they did my money). I will never do business with that company again.

Re:Sun virtualbox

[QAChaos]

i also have always liked virtual box - i was surprised at a mac store one time - a customer asked if vmware or parallels was better and the sales person actually suggested that they try virtual box.

Re:An interesting read

[Malc]

Not for me. VMWare Fusion crashes all the time. If I boot Windows and leave it, it's fine. If I boot it and open a web page in IE and leave it, it will freeze in under 10 minutes. I've had a support incident open for six weeks, and I'm getting frustrated with them asking to send the logs again, asking me to try things repeatedly as if they've forgotten they'd already asked me. Now they've gone silent on me. The worst bit is I have to reboot the Mac or I can't restart the VM that froze, only the Mac hangs on shut down after the VM froze and I have to hit and hold the power button.

Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments

[AKAImBatman]

Does VirtualBox allow you to run your BootCamp partition in a virtual machine? Last time I check it didn't.

As far as I know, this has not changed. However, it is possible to extract the Bootcamp partition into a VDMK which VirtualBox can read. I've never done it before, so try it at your own risk.

I must the admit that the number of times I actually boot into windows has diminished drastically

What's this "windows" you speak of? I use VirtualBox for alternative operating systems! :-P

Actually, I did setup one Windows 7 VM so my wife could use an educational CD she needs. Other than that, I haven't found a lot of reason to use Windows on my Mac. I imagine I would have a few more if I didn't have an older Windows XP desktop hanging around, but even that tends to run cross-platform software. (Even Microsoft Office has been successfully replaced with OpenOffice!)

All told, the age of Windows lock-in is fading rapidly. Just about all native software these days either has a Mac version or a good Mac alternative available. Interestingly, FireFox shows markedly better graphics performance on the Mac over the PC. I haven't figured that one out yet. :-/

Re:Always funny to me...

[Malc]

I just wish I could get OS X Leopard running in VMWare PLayer on XP. I installed OS X Server 10.5 using VMWare Fusion, and got it booting under VMWare Player, but it's running in to problems before logon (looping with mds and ATSServer crashing). Would much rather have the desktop OS working though as we develop cross platform software for Mac and Windows, but we're a Windows shop first and foremost. I just need somewhere to compile, debug and unit test the Mac code, and don't currently have budget for a Mac to do this with using BootCamp.

Graphs do not correspond...

[spinlight]

to the summary in the article. It looks like the author switched the Parallels benchmarks with the VMware benchmarks.

In the majority of overall averages of our tests, Parallels Desktop is the clear winner running 14-20% faster than VMware Fusion. The one exception is for those that need to run Windows XP, 32-bit on 2 virtual processors, VMware Fusion runs about 10% faster than Parallels Desktop.

The exact opposite appears to be the case, according to the legend at the bottom of the graph.

Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments

[SoVeryTired]

Virtualbox is very nice, but it really needs to improve the "snapshot" backup functionality. It's a bit unintuitive: I've read numerous posts by people who lost backups by irreversibly deleting snapshots by accident. The GUI gives no warning when you choose to perform some irreversible action like discarding a snapshot.

  Backups really need to improve in VB before it becomes competetive with VMware.

Re:Always funny to me...

[tlhIngan]

People who buy a Mac and run Windows exclusively I don't get. But I personally feel comfortable in both Windows and OS X, prefer OS X for most of my non-professional activities, yet am more or less forced to use Windows for the majority of my work-related activities (what can I say? SAP's Java client lacks several important features...). It's sad that you find it laugh-worthy that people like me enjoy having a choice.

I did just this. At the time, Apple's Mac Pro was cheaper than an equivalently configured Dell (about $1000 more!), and building it yourself was also out of the question. My number one requirement was it be quiet. The Mac Pro is quiet (I cna hear the hard disks), the Dell I'm not sure, and the DIY solution was not going to save me a significant amount of money for all the extra effort it took to find a quiet (but cool) case, a quiet power supply, quiet fans, etc.

Sure, I couild boot into OS X, but I don't, because I have other Macs in the house that run quite well.

As a hardware manufacturer, Apple's products are quite nice (design wise), so I can undetstand people who are Windows users wanting to buy a Mac and running Windows on it.

Re:Games?

[SpazmodeusG]

Yes.
It works really well too. I mean REALLY well.

Basically any game that runs under Wine currently will run under Virtual Boxes 3D hardware implementation (they used a lot of WINEs implementations for the graphics functions).
The performance is about what you'd get running under WINE in Linux natively.

For home use i wouldn't bother with anything other than VitualBox. No other Virtual Machine out there approaches its 3D hardware virtualisation.

One other thing

[Midnight Thunder]

I switched from Parallels Desktop to VirtualBox and it has one feature which I really like;

Another thing Virtual Box has going for it is that it doesn't need a network interface driver external to the VM.

Re:This violates VMware's EULA

[Sentry21]

Interesting, I didn't know that VMWare was one of those companies that was afraid to have their product compared to those of others. Do they have something to hide?

I wasn't a VMWare user already, but hearing this kind of thing, if true, makes me even less inclined to try their product. If they're going to tell me I can't talk about a product I've paid for, well, I'm not going to pay for it.

Re:free?

[Thumper_SVX]

If you REALLY like to punish your Mac... you can also get Gentoo for OSX [gentoo.org]. Of course, to some Gentoo is punishing yourself, too... but personally I love having the prefixed Gentoo environment for all my Linux-style tools, while still being able to run my Mac tools in the same terminal window.

I'm not quite ready to have that as my default shell environment though... but I do have a shortcut to start up "startprefix.sh" in a terminal window :)

Note that if there's BSD or Linux type software you just HAVE to have and can't live without, but also can't get as an OSX package or Gentoo emerge... there's always DarwinPorts [darwinports.com], which is a version of Port for OSX. I have that as well, but I tend to use Gentoo as my first source, Port as my second.