i7/i9, 16/32GB MBP 16" - Virtual Machine/Developer usage

[pcfx]

Hi,
I want to get the 16" MBP but I'm not sure which spec to get. I've never owned a Mac before so I'm not familiar with resource consumption etc. I would like to point out my use case, maybe you have a similar one and could share your experience/opinion.

I'm a developer and therefore use it for programming (web applications, scripts etc.). I count VSCode, Visual Studio (C#), vim, python, nodejs to my daily tools.
I also do security stuff therefore I'm currently running different OSes in virtual machines. Usually I run 1 instance of Kali Linux and another Windows 7/10 VM at the same time. I get a smooth experience assinging both VMs 2 (virtual) cores and 4GB RAM each with my current setup (Windows 10/i7 4 cores/16GB RAM). In rare cases I run 3 VMs at the same time.

I also want to use 1 external monitor with FHD or QHD resolution if this matters.
Please also share your opinion on VMware Fusion or Parallels. I've only used VirtualBox so far but I've read the performance it way worse than the other two.

Which hardware would you recommend. Do you think 16GB is enough or do I need more. I would like to find a good compromise between price, battery life and long term usage. I use it 95% at home but I feel an i9 with 32GB of RAM could exceed the purpose of a notebook and would maybe make it unusable while traveling because of such high power consumption?

Anybody with a similar workflow?

 

[RoundaboutRider]

I have almost the same use case as you but I also run RapidWeaver and Hype 5 at the same time - together I run two instances of Windows 10 and one Linux Mint in Parallels on an MBP 13 2018 i7 16GB. I get very smooth performance on everything I use and that includes running Visual Studio + Office in the background in the main Win 10 VM. I might be cheating a bit by using a BlackMagic eGPU that’s connected to a 4K display in addition to keeping the MBP screen running.

I’ve found 16GB fine and memory pressure rarely goes beyond green in Activity Monitor. However, the greedy fella in me still ordered a 2020 MBP i7 with 32GB RAM. I can compare performance when I get the new system (hopefully soon!)

 

[pcfx]

I can relate to your greedy fella^^
How much RAM/cores did you assign to your VMs and how much RAM do you have left running your described setup?
So based on your current experience you never considered getting an i9?

 

[RoundaboutRider]

I had 2-cores to each Windows 10 VMs but my main VM running VS had 3GB RAM, the other had 2GB mainly for Zoom and Chrome (I don’t trust these on my main macOS system). The Linux Mint VM had to do with only 1GB RAM but 2-cores still. MacOS seemed to juggle these beautifully while also running RapidWeaver, Safari, Firefox and Mail on macOS. Ocassionally I use Xcode.

I never thought I’d need an i9 based on the above but I don’t do extremely heavy coding in VS as I‘m more of a front-end dev and designer. I found Swift in XCode more of a churn when starting up Simulator on macOS but even then it’s only for a couple of seconds.