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fusion vs parrales
- Thread starter krabbedoelie
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P v F
I have always recommended Parallels, I think the interface is cleaner, and on the systems I have seen it running on after install, it seems faster. Simple as that.
Hope this helps
I have always recommended Parallels, I think the interface is cleaner, and on the systems I have seen it running on after install, it seems faster. Simple as that.
Hope this helps
Fusion all the way. To me, good pricing, good support, good compatibility , good resource management etc. I have also used enterprise level products (vSphere, ESX) for the past several years. Parallels is irrelevant for me.
i only use Fusion (can report on Parrallell as have no experience with it). I agree that Fusion has a larger base of support as they build for many different OS's than just Mac OS. This allows me to use the same image that others in my company use on their Windows PCs. This ability to transfer images between Windows and Mac systems is the selling point for me. If my coworkers have an image corruption, they can borrow mine and continue working without issues (makes switching between projects very easy and seamless).
I'd recommend Parallels. IMO, it has a much cleaner (easier to use) interface, better integration with OS X, it is also faster and uses less system resources.
Unless you need 3d, I'd say VirtualBox. It's free and it works really well. No real support for 3d games though, and I'm not sure how it handles under heavy loads (i.e. video editing or something).
Of the pay ones, I prefer Parallels. But rumor is version 7 is coming out soon so might be worth holding off.
Of the pay ones, I prefer Parallels. But rumor is version 7 is coming out soon so might be worth holding off.
I did a bit of research when I ordered my MBP and decided to buy Fusion as it seems it's 3d support is better than Parrallels?
Anyway I paid the measly some of £40 ish pounds (at time of ordering the mpp) and I'm really impressed
I have an image of my works laptop xp, a test image of this (for games!), an image on 2k3, and windows 7 for playing with - all legit!
Very impressed with Fusion as it meets all my expectations with great support, I don't see any reason to try Parrallels or Bootcamp etc
Anyway I paid the measly some of £40 ish pounds (at time of ordering the mpp) and I'm really impressed
I have an image of my works laptop xp, a test image of this (for games!), an image on 2k3, and windows 7 for playing with - all legit!
Very impressed with Fusion as it meets all my expectations with great support, I don't see any reason to try Parrallels or Bootcamp etc
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Fusion although I can't say for parallels I found fusion to be clean and utilizes the macs resources well,parallels had a cheap look sorry.
Fusion although I can't say for parallels I found fusion to be clean and utilizes the macs resources well,parallels had a cheap look sorry.
I've run both, mainly because even the Fusion beta wasn't available when I needed VMs for work under OSX, so I bought and ran Parallels for a year or two. My initial impressions of Parallels was pretty good, actually, and when I later moved to Fusion beta then 1.x, 2.x, there were some occasions that it seemed that Parallels had slightly better performance, but I never did benchmark both of them on the same machine, so was 'by feel' only. I think this was Parallels v1 through v3, now they're at 5.x or something, and went through Fusion 1.0 beta through today, 3.x.
The big benefit of Fusion is building VMs locally that I can share among Windows and Linux VMWare users, as well as VMs that can be deployed to ESX servers if needed. VMWare has various line tools/utilities available, like vdiskmanager to grow your virtual drive, which is occasionally useful - not positive if Parallels has the equivalent, but wouldn't be surprised if they did. Parallels had hardware/GPU based graphics acceleration first, then Fusion added that. full-screen 'unity' mode isn't too appealing to me personally, not sure if parallels has that today or not. If it weren't in my interest to retain VM compatibility, and didn't have a history around 10 years with VMWare, I'd take a look for some recent benchmarks from a reliable source, check the recent features for anything you may think is important, and see who's running a better sale at the time. I'd be surprised if they're not fairly close to party with each other feature-wise, and likely within 10% or so on performance. I can't speak for consumer level customer service, although to run a single VM, I also wouldn't expect much is really needed, although vmware does have a large set of online communities backing up any 'official support' if needed.
Try virtualbox if you just want to see how many resources it will take and in general, how well a Windows VM may run on your system/specs. I haven't run virtualbox in at least a year or more now, was OK, not quite as 'works out of the box' as either commercial offering, but it is free and worked reasonably well.
Sorry, probably not much help..I don't think you'd have real issues with either.
The big benefit of Fusion is building VMs locally that I can share among Windows and Linux VMWare users, as well as VMs that can be deployed to ESX servers if needed. VMWare has various line tools/utilities available, like vdiskmanager to grow your virtual drive, which is occasionally useful - not positive if Parallels has the equivalent, but wouldn't be surprised if they did. Parallels had hardware/GPU based graphics acceleration first, then Fusion added that. full-screen 'unity' mode isn't too appealing to me personally, not sure if parallels has that today or not. If it weren't in my interest to retain VM compatibility, and didn't have a history around 10 years with VMWare, I'd take a look for some recent benchmarks from a reliable source, check the recent features for anything you may think is important, and see who's running a better sale at the time.
I'd be surprised if they're not fairly close to party with each other feature-wise, and likely within 10% or so on performance. I can't speak for consumer level customer service, although to run a single VM, I also wouldn't expect much is really needed, although vmware does have a large set of online communities backing up any 'official support' if needed.Try virtualbox if you just want to see how many resources it will take and in general, how well a Windows VM may run on your system/specs. I haven't run virtualbox in at least a year or more now, was OK, not quite as 'works out of the box' as either commercial offering, but it is free and worked reasonably well.
Sorry, probably not much help..I don't think you'd have real issues with either.
I used to use Fusion but since Parallels 6 came out, it blows Fusion out of the water in terms of system benchmarks and graphical benchmarks. So Parallels 6 for me here.
http://www.mactech.com/2011/01/05/virtualization-benchmarks-12
http://www.mactech.com/2011/01/05/virtualization-benchmarks-12
Actually this isn't true, parallels has far better video performance than fusion. Parallels came out with their 6th version a few months ago, it is really incredible. and has almost 3 times better video performance than fusion(unless they came out with a new version, but i'm sure fusion has been stagnant for quite a while now). just google and make sure you are looking at the most current version of both, but parallels has better video performance....
I've used both... in the end i use virtual box, I don't use windows for intensive video aps, just for ms office and some engineering applications. Parallels also has a much nicer interface than any of those programs, and I really like their usb interface, never had a problem with it. Can't say that about virtual box, but it works often enough. I just don't like fusion too uch, it feels like a slightly better version of vb whereas parallels really seems likea premium virtualization application
I agree. Fusion seemed to always lag behind Parallels in terms of graphical processing, although not by much and would catch up with a patch release. But overall, Parallels always seemed to be a step ahead later on in the game and especially with version 6. While early on Fusion was better, Parallels seemed to catchup and now out perform Fusion in almost every category.
I went and checked out the latest round of benchmarks after my last posting, and it seems consistent in that Parallels is still > Fusion with respect to any 3d in particular, regardless of the source/review/benchmarker.
There's a huge thread about it on vmware forums if you can find it, back from fusion 3.0 or 3.1 (now at 3.1.1), and some interesting bits in there, basically in the way parallels chose to support the graphics hardware vs vmware's choice - I'm not sure without more reading if the response holds water or not. Anandtech or another did a parallels review and I believe also saw better 3d and Aero performance, but had a lot of gripes over stability of parallels vs fusion, and quite a few comments from users about parallel upgrade problems.
I didn't see anything that would realistically push me back to parallels, at least for a work perspective - fusion has been nothing but stable for me, with a large number of different vms, no issues on upgrades...but it does irk me that the company that pioneered x86 virtualization and I pushed the heck out of in several datacenters (and works very well in) can't manage to get their performance on par with a relatively tiny company.
If my primary focus was occasional Windows apps and gaming, vs exchangeable common multi-platform VMs and occasionally grabbing a pre-built 'appliance' vm (vmware does do these things well), I'd have to say it seems I'd be all over Parallels - the video of Fusion rendering issues is just inexcusable. I pretty much *never* run games inside my VMs as last time I considered it DirectX wasn't supported at all, but maybe it's time to try for the heck of it, or at least running 3dmark06..
I'm in the Fusion 4 testing programme, and I must say, its really catching up in terms of functionality and stability. Plus theres a new hardware engine which does wonders if you're on the 2011 Macs
Personally, for me, I'd go with Fusion. Parallels may be faster but its support and stability don't match with Fusion. Anytime I needed support with VMware, all I need to do is mail the devs and I'd have an answer back in 24 hours tops. With Parallels, you'd be hard pressed to find such good support.
In the end, so what if Parallels, can push out a few more points in benchmarks. In real world operation, it won't matter much for me tbh.
Its not really fair to make comparisons between Fusion 3 and Parallels 6 like this. Fusion 3 came out in 2009 which in software years would be as old as a dinosaur while Parallels 6 was released at the end of 2010.
I'd wait till their next generation of software is released which should be soon before I try to make any truthful and accurate comparisons.
I tried parallel first but it never worked properly. Mouse and keyboard switching between native and VM often was quite glitchy. Its unity mode never worked as flawless as Fusion's.
Next I tried Fusion and that doesn't seem to have any of that buggyness. Fusion is much more stable in my experience. I don't know if either is truly faster but Fusion is plenty fast. I also like the Fusion UI much more than parallels.
For me it feels like Parallels is for Mac people that for some reason need to run some Windows app from time to time. The UI is more Mac oriented. It is more the consumer VM.
Fusion is more for the professional, tried and true kind of things with well big IBM behind it and lots of interoperability. For the people who happen to work on a Mac because they come to like but still know and use other stuff. UI keeps more to the Windows side.
Next I tried Fusion and that doesn't seem to have any of that buggyness. Fusion is much more stable in my experience. I don't know if either is truly faster but Fusion is plenty fast. I also like the Fusion UI much more than parallels.
For me it feels like Parallels is for Mac people that for some reason need to run some Windows app from time to time. The UI is more Mac oriented. It is more the consumer VM.
Fusion is more for the professional, tried and true kind of things with well big IBM behind it and lots of interoperability. For the people who happen to work on a Mac because they come to like but still know and use other stuff. UI keeps more to the Windows side.
The age old question of vmware vs. parallels.
If the OP searched he'd see there's a gazillion threads here about this topic, and if he googled it, there's even more information out in the wild.
Here's my list of pros/cons.
Vmware
Pros
Stable
awesome support
fairly bug free updates
cross platform compatibility
Cons
Slower performance
Parallels
Pros
Faster performance - can play some games
more frequent updates (see cons on this)
Cons
buggier and updates are typically quite unstable
support is dreadful
Mac only
I opted for vmware because of their support and stable platform. My needs are more business like and less game centric. Many people want windows for games and parallels provides a better experience in that segment. In using parallels I not only incurred BSODs frequently, it also caused kernel panics. Switching to Fusion, and the BSODs disappeared as did the KPs. Plus I think Vmware's updates are more solid. I think parallels throws an update out there as quick as they can to beat the competition (which they do) but it causes more headaches for the consumer because its buggy.
Just my $.02.
If the OP searched he'd see there's a gazillion threads here about this topic, and if he googled it, there's even more information out in the wild.
Here's my list of pros/cons.
Vmware
Pros
Stable
awesome support
fairly bug free updates
cross platform compatibility
Cons
Slower performance
Parallels
Pros
Faster performance - can play some games
more frequent updates (see cons on this)
Cons
buggier and updates are typically quite unstable
support is dreadful
Mac only
I opted for vmware because of their support and stable platform. My needs are more business like and less game centric. Many people want windows for games and parallels provides a better experience in that segment. In using parallels I not only incurred BSODs frequently, it also caused kernel panics. Switching to Fusion, and the BSODs disappeared as did the KPs. Plus I think Vmware's updates are more solid. I think parallels throws an update out there as quick as they can to beat the competition (which they do) but it causes more headaches for the consumer because its buggy.
Just my $.02.
