VirtualBox vs VMWare vs Parallels on Mac?

[killerbee79]

My viewpoint comes from using Parallels 5. I encourage you to go to the websites for both Parallels and Fusion. You can use their VM software for free for 30 days. Play around with it and see if you like it. That is what I did. I found Fusion to be really slow and cumbersome. I found Parallels to be awesome so I bought that and went with it. I have no complaints.

Support for the Magic Mouse.

no problem here, I use a Magic Mouse with mine

Support for accessing image files on a USB external drive and saving back to it.

Again no problem. When you plug in a USB device a window will pop up asking you if you want the VM to access it.

Ability to also access images on a USB drive from applications running on the host OS; Picasa, for instance. I think some VM's shut off host OS from USB drives.

Again no problem with Parallels. You can set it up to have both the host and VM have full access to one another if you wish.

Support for accessing files on CD's or DVD's

Another can do

Can I shut off XP from vulnerability to viruses if I don't use IE? I use Safari and Firefox for Mac.

Your XP VM will still be vulnerable to viruses just as though it were a real PC. I use Microsoft's free virus software Security Essentials as protection because it is free and for what I do I have no worry of viruses.

I use keyboard shortcuts a lot. How will they work with Photoshop 7 on XP and a Mac keyboard?

Should still work. Just remember that your "option key" in XP is "Alt"

Some people mention using VM's to access Boot Camp. I don't understand what advantages there might be to doing so. Can someone explain?

Well supposedly then you can choose to either boot right into windows natively or into Mac OS and fiddle with XP in the VM software depending on your mood. However I've read that depending how you shut down XP in this scenario it might constantly prompt you to verify licenses. I personally don't mess with bootcamp, no need for me.

 

[philryan]

VirtualBox 4.18 is quicker than Parallels 7!

I just purchased the latest Parallels 7, upgrading from my old Parallels 4... supposedly this one is needed in order to run properly on OSX Lion.

Parallels did a great good job of importing a VirtualBox virtual hard disk file, so that I didn't have to start from scratch to create a set of Windows XP, Ubuntu, and Windows 7 VM's within Parallels.

However, VirtualBox's resume only takes a few seconds (maybe 10) on an 8GB early 2010 MacBook Pro... whereas Parallels is taking more than a few minutes to resume.

So, I'm guessing that Parallels has slightly more "user-friendly" features, and requires slightly less geekiness to manage, but this little black duck is leaning very heavily towards saying that VirtualBox is better than Parallels for most uses, and most users.

 

[pragmatous]

I have parallels and I use it. I think it's awesome. If you install windows in bootcamp and again in parallels yes you have to activate it twice but microsoft doesn't care because it's on the same computer. It's not a big deal.
What is even more awesome is paralllels has coherence mode where you can just launch windows apps as if it was installed locally on your mac. It's pretty cool.

I use eclipse and android virtual device and they both work flawlessly.

I am getting ready to finally "make the switch" to Mac and I need a Virtualization solution
to ease the transition for my wife and let me run my work environments as well.

I have been considering VirtualBox (http://www.virtualbox.org) which is free for personal use, as well as VMWare Fusion 3, and Parallels. The satisfaction rating seems to be lower with the Parallels users (maybe disgruntled on charging folks for 2 upgraded within 2 months of each other) so I have almost ruled it out, but I still need to decide. The big thing here is that I need this software from day one to make sure my wife doesn't have to miss a beat during the transition. I'd rather not be reinstalling Windows _again_ in 2 weeks to switch solutions.

Anybody have any experience with VirtualBox on Mac and can maybe share some of the shortcomings versus VMWare Fusion or Parallels? Is there good reason fork over the cash and go with Fusion or Parallels?

Any feedback would be great.

 

[killerbee79]

I have parallels and I use it. I think it's awesome. If you install windows in bootcamp and again in parallels yes you have to activate it twice but microsoft doesn't care because it's on the same computer. It's not a big deal.
What is even more awesome is paralllels has coherence mode where you can just launch windows apps as if it was installed locally on your mac. It's pretty cool.

I use eclipse and android virtual device and they both work flawlessly.

How does the whole activating twice thing work? I thought where ever you activate it that is where you have to use it. I use Win 7 in bootcamp only because of this (I own Parallels). I would love to be able to use that bootcamp in both parallels and bootcamp depending on how I feel at the time.

Can you go back in forth between using the install in bootcamp and parallels as you please with your double activation you did?

 

[BC2009]

I have parallels and I use it. I think it's awesome. If you install windows in bootcamp and again in parallels yes you have to activate it twice but microsoft doesn't care because it's on the same computer. It's not a big deal.
What is even more awesome is paralllels has coherence mode where you can just launch windows apps as if it was installed locally on your mac. It's pretty cool.

I use eclipse and android virtual device and they both work flawlessly.

Thanks for the response, but I posted that almost three years ago. I made my switch and used Fusion for a while but since then I have found virtualized Windows to be more trouble than it's worth because of having to reserve system resources for a few other reasons. If you can avoid running Windows on the Mac you get more out of your machine's resources. If you must then Parallels and Fusion are far superior to Virtual Box.

 

[gallo889]

How about Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5+?

How do the virtualizations stack-up running Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)? Mostly interesting in stability. USB bus support under Linux vm isn't an issue. Any mysterious hangs or performance degradations?

 

[pragmatous]

Ya I can go back and forth. I use parallels for basic computing like using chrome and word. If I need more power I boot into bootcamp. If I need to activate it again thats fine. If you run out of activations just call microsoft and input the code you get. It's not a person but like a phone robot thing.

microsoft doesn't care as long as you have it installed on one computer device. You have unlimited activations. I hope you know that.

How does the whole activating twice thing work? I thought where ever you activate it that is where you have to use it. I use Win 7 in bootcamp only because of this (I own Parallels). I would love to be able to use that bootcamp in both parallels and bootcamp depending on how I feel at the time.

Can you go back in forth between using the install in bootcamp and parallels as you please with your double activation you did?