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VMWare vs. Parallels

Y

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
15,027
3,002
St. Louis, MO
This has probably been discussed a million times, but which one's better?

I had been trying out Parallels and noticed that whenever I had booted my XP VM, both XP and OSX would be come incredibly slow and sluggish. A coworker told me that VMWare was much better, so I downloaded it, started an unattended install of XP, and as it's installing, I'm browsing the web (in OSX obviously) and have iTunes playing, and the only sign that I even have a VM running is the sound of my DVD drive reading the XP disc. Is VMWare that much better? Or do I need to wait until XP is fully installed before I can make that judgement?
 
Bill Gates

Bill Gates

macrumors 68030
Jun 21, 2006
2,500
14
127.0.0.1
Both are about the same. I've used both and have personally found VMware to be more stable. I currently use VMware.
 
S

Squareball

macrumors regular
Mar 16, 2004
167
1
Palo Alto, CA
I have a command line only install of Fedora Core 6 running in Parallels and even sitting idle it takes around 30% CPU. VMWare has it around 1%.

I have found Parallels to be a HUGE CPU hog which is probably the reason you're seeing such slow downs with Parallels as opposed to VMWare.
 
M

murfle

macrumors regular
Mar 7, 2007
131
0
Littleodie914 said:
Another vote for VMWare, just because it's (currently) free and runs off my boot camp partition automatically.
Click to expand...

Guess I need to re-evaluate VMWare... I've heard it does 3D now, but I didn't know it ran off bootcamp partitions... I'm wondering though... If you install windows through bootcamp, then point both parallels (so I can use coherence mode), and VMWare (for gaming without rebooting the mac), would windows activation complain? Naturally, I wouldn't be running both at the same time... That'd just plain hurt. lol
 
synth3tik

synth3tik

macrumors 68040
Oct 11, 2006
3,951
2
Minneapolis, MN
I like that VMWare is currently gree and it is a really slick program, but the last time I worked with the beta I was having trouble getting it to recognize input devices. Since then I have been using parallels and they have added some of the things I liked in VMWare like coherence.
 
MRU

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,368
8,948
a better place
Parallels was ahead for a long time, almost every month we saw a new update with enhancements.

However of late, the releases seem fewer and far between, and the promised 3d acceleration etc for the next version promised 4 or 5 months ago still hasnt materialised.

I like parallels - but VMWare is nudging it at this stage.
 
C

Celeron

macrumors 6502a
Mar 11, 2004
705
9
I just got my MacPro so I installed Vmware fusion beta 3. It runs my Windows XP bootcamp partition perfectly. I didn't notice any slow down in OS X with the virtual machine running.

I personally haven't tried Parallels and I don't think I'm going to bother. VMware has been in this arena for a LONG time and their products on Windows / Linux are rock solid. I would consider them the benchmark for virtualization. Once VMware Fusion comes out of beta I think it's going to be quite a bit better than Parallels. Just a hunch though.
 
user13

user13

macrumors regular
Dec 22, 2006
191
0
Celeron said:
I personally haven't tried Parallels and I don't think I'm going to bother.
Click to expand...
I have the same situation with Parallels. I've been using it from early betas and they have improved the program's quality so far. They added Coherence and Bootcamp support features, that are great. The performance is also great, Windows works almost at its native speed. Parallels suits me, I'm just waiting for their following release to get 3d support. This will be a revolutionary feature for Parallels, indeed.
 
W

waremaster

macrumors 6502
Aug 27, 2006
406
2
yg17 said:
This has probably been discussed a million times, but which one's better?

I had been trying out Parallels and noticed that whenever I had booted my XP VM, both XP and OSX would be come incredibly slow and sluggish. A coworker told me that VMWare was much better, so I downloaded it, started an unattended install of XP, and as it's installing, I'm browsing the web (in OSX obviously) and have iTunes playing, and the only sign that I even have a VM running is the sound of my DVD drive reading the XP disc. Is VMWare that much better? Or do I need to wait until XP is fully installed before I can make that judgement?
Click to expand...

I use VMware and Parallels I like the fact that in VMware it supports dual core processors in the windows environment and at this moment Parallels only shows 1 processor.
 
user13

user13

macrumors regular
Dec 22, 2006
191
0
waremaster said:
I use VMware and Parallels I like the fact that in VMware it supports dual core processors in the windows environment and at this moment Parallels only shows 1 processor.
Click to expand...
Is there any info when Parallels will support dual core processors? I didn't find anything on their official site about this
 
P

PatMack

macrumors member
Apr 11, 2006
43
0
I can't stand Parallels. It sent my MacBook to a slow crawl.

I plan to try it again though now that i have 2GB of ram installed in my iMac.
 
user13

user13

macrumors regular
Dec 22, 2006
191
0
PatMack said:
I can't stand Parallels. It sent my MacBook to a slow crawl.

I plan to try it again though now that i have 2GB of ram installed in my iMac.
Click to expand...
And how much RAM did you have when it worked slowly? Did you run some specific "heavy" apps? The type of the programs and amount of RAM are very important of course. I heard people running Parallels with less than 400 MBs of RAM and they say it worked well. I didn't see it with my own eyes, of course.
 
e12a

e12a

macrumors 68000
Oct 28, 2006
1,881
0
VMWare Fusion Beta = Free

that's why I use it, and its bleeding edge.
 
user13

user13

macrumors regular
Dec 22, 2006
191
0
e12a said:
VMWare Fusion Beta = Free

that's why I use it, and its bleeding edge.
Click to expand...
See, it's beta, that's why it is free. Parallels is RC already. When Fusion becomes a full version, it will also become shareware
 
solvs

solvs

macrumors 603
Jun 25, 2002
5,684
1
LaLaLand, CA
Used Parallels for awhile, but it was slow and completely hosed a Boot Camp partition. I hear the newer releases are better, others at work use it, but once I went VMWare, I haven't gone back. And probably won't, unless VMWare is too expensive when it comes out, but I doubt it. Works perfectly with Boot Camp, as well as Windows VM images. DirectX works ok for now, hoping it gets better. USB works flawlessly.

Full disclosure, my Sister's friend works for them right now, but let's just say you're going to love it when it gets released as a full version. Everything Parallels has and more. I'm trying to convince them to switch at work when it comes out of beta, maybe he can get us a discount.
 
SharkySharky

SharkySharky

macrumors member
Apr 29, 2007
39
0
Utah
Does anyone know fi you can Install XP on Parallels AND VMware with one installation disc? I want to try out each one and see which one I like personnaly. Thank you!:apple:
 
plinden

plinden

macrumors 601
Apr 8, 2004
4,029
142
Parallels works great on both my iMac (orignal 1.83 GHz Core Duo w/2GB RAM) and my wife's MB (original 1.83GHz CD with 1GB RAM). I find Fusion a little less snappy, but it's much improved with the latest beta, now that you can turn off debug logging.

I also find that Fusion has better support for different Linux distros and Solaris 10 - I couldn't install Ubuntu 7 at all in Parallels, no problem in Fusion. I could install Solaris 10 in Parallels, but I wasn't happy with the install process and it didn't seem to work the way I expected once installed (I can't remember exactly what I'm talking about - I removed the VM eventually) but it installed flawlessly in Fusion. Having Linux Tools, and the ability to use our standard VMs at work, are big pluses for fusion.

If you're having problems with "sluggishness" it's usually due to assigning too much RAM to the VM. This can be a problem with whatever virtual machine app you're using, whether it's Parallels, VMWare or Virtual PC, because then you're taking away available RAM from the VM application itself. I never assign more than 512MB, even to my Vista VM.
 
e12a

e12a

macrumors 68000
Oct 28, 2006
1,881
0
Nothing wrong with beta software, as long as it's stable.

You're using bleeding edge software thats free, the only downside i guess is the lack of support. But then again i never had any problems with it.

The only thing tahts a little flaky is the file copying between OSes.
 
A

acrafton

macrumors 6502
Jan 18, 2006
267
1
How to create an image from existing install. .?

One of the features I like in Parallels is that it comes with a tool that will create an install image from an existing system so you don't have to do a install of all your apps, data, and configure, etc. . .How to do that with VMWare? Does it come with something or is there a third party app?
 
user13

user13

macrumors regular
Dec 22, 2006
191
0
SharkySharky said:
Does anyone know fi you can Install XP on Parallels AND VMware with one installation disc? I want to try out each one and see which one I like personnaly. Thank you!:apple:
Click to expand...
Well, I'm not sure, but I think that you will have to install two copies of windows for that. It will be a waste of free space. I would also try out Fusion anyway. But I'm traditionally with Parallels, and I like how it works and so on and so forth:)
 
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