Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Parallels vs VMWare on M2 MBP?

B

Broric

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 1, 2009
210
24
I'm a bit confused as VMWare Fusiuon Player *seems* (?) to be free for personal use. When I installed it on my intel-based MBP, it gave me a license code for free and it all worked fine. I'm about to get a new M2 MBP and want to run Windows (ARM) in a VM.

If parallels was a one-off fee then I wouldn't mind but it seems to be a subscription model (though I'd qualify for education discount).

Why would I go for parallels over VMWare? Any good reason?
 
Broric said:
Any good reason?
Click to expand...
Yes, a better product, pure and simple.
  • Vmware is late to the ARM party and so they only have a tech preview available.
  • Even before the transition to ARM, Parallels offered more features, and better performance.
  • Vmware seems a bit slow in updating their Fusion application, i.e., you get what you pay for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • More stable product over Vmware.
  • DirectX support


I hate subscriptions, don't get me wrong, but Parallels is a much better option then vmware. In a sense, you get what you pay for. Free means less features, and less updates, and less attention by the developer. You also have to ask yourself how are they making money on you?

See this:https://www.parallels.com/pd/fusion-compete/
 
  • Like
  • Love
Reactions: Edgecrusherr, Cape Dave, martint235 and 4 others
Have I read it correctly that while the Pro version is a subscription, the home/student edition is a one-off cost?

I don't understand if I've read this right as there seems to be a student version that is also a subscription.

Screenshot 2023-01-29 at 16.23.03.png


Screenshot 2023-01-29 at 16.22.49.png
 
The non-subscription version of Parallels s more limited than the subscription Pro version, but the fundamental performance and ease of use is very much there. Check the edition comparisons to see if you would actually need the feature set of the subscription in your use case.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
I’m struggling to find that info as the pages for the subscription and one-off versions seem fairly independent and it’s hard to compare.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500 and madeirabhoy
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500, BigMcGuire and Broric
Do not to VMWare Fusion. Just go Parallels. This is coming from a guy that absolutely hates subscription models and has completely abandoned all Adobe products because of it.

I bought standard edition Parallels 17 (the non subscription version) more than a year ago to do basic tasks and play some older vintage games and am very happy with it. They actually tried to scare me with popups when Parallels 18 and the new MacOS came out saying they aren't compatible and you need to upgrade which is such an immoral business tactic because it absolutely was not true. I'm using Parallels 17 and MacOS Ventura and it runs just as well as before.

But the software is so damn good compared to VMWare Fusion. That should tell you something.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mac Hammer Fan, SB1500, Cape Dave and 1 other person
If you want to save money with Parallels, I found you can easily upgrade every other year, even when a new MacOS comes out, because they keep the last version compatible for at least that long.

Also, there are usually some significant discounts in the fall when they do a new release, and holidays (e.g. Black Friday).

I personally think it's a great product and well worth the money.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mac Hammer Fan, trusso and BigMcGuire
Broric said:
There’s also a 49/year student version. Is that the same feature-wise as you posted?
Click to expand...
I don't know, I'm not a student, so I never rally investigated the model - that one though sounds like a subscription.
 
VMware Fusion is free for personal use.

Parallels licensing model is either subscription or one off cost. But the one off cost will likely need an upgrade for the next version of macOS. Both seem like subscription to me.

In my view Fusion has always been better than Parallels for Linux VMs and for Windows unless you want to play games. The current versions of both Parallels and VMware allow you to install Windows for ARM. And in both cases licensing of Windows is between you and Microsoft.

The Fusion vs Parallels argument is best avoided. There are no unbiased comparisons. Try each and see which you prefer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: T-K-L, SB1500 and iamfredrik
maflynn said:
You also have to ask yourself how are they making money on you?
Click to expand...
VMware aren't trying to, except by it being a base for people who might go on to be paid users at their work. VMware makes its money from its enterprise customers.

Historically, VMware Player for Windows was always free whilst Fusion was not. My understanding is that the Fusion product manager argued strongly within VMware to get a free personal edition for Mac and that it finally happened with Fusion 12. This brought the Mac editions in line with those on Windows.

The owners of Parallels (Cascade Parent Limited trading as Alludo) is much much smaller with its software products more aimed at the consumer and small business market.
 
  • Like
Reactions: T-K-L and SB1500
gilby101 said:
VMware aren't trying to
Click to expand...
And that's why that product has lagged behind the competition. If its not a revenue stream, they'll not be dedicating too much resources to its development or upkeep.

I used to use vmware fusion all of the time, but it lacked features and performance of parallels. With a free version, I can only imagine that developers are paying even less attention or time to its development.

Since their ARM based product is still a tech preview, even though Apple released the first M1 Mac in 2020, you have to ask yourself which company is providing the better product and support
 
maflynn said:
And that's why that product has lagged behind the competition. If its not a revenue stream, they'll not be dedicating too much resources to its development or upkeep.

I used to use vmware fusion all of the time, but it lacked features and performance of parallels. With a free version, I can only imagine that developers are paying even less attention or time to its development.

Since their ARM based product is still a tech preview, even though Apple released the first M1 Mac in 2020, you have to ask yourself which company is providing the better product and support
Click to expand...
Today’s announcements from Microsoft and Parallels raise a few possibilities. One is that Microsoft intentionally reached out to Parallels and told them that they would authorize Parallels for running Windows 11 ARM once their exclusivity with Qualcomm expired. They could want one “official” channel because of the known limitations of Windows 11 ARM on Apple Silicon (no nested virtualization, DirectX 12, etc.). This could be why Parallels poured so much time and energy early on when Microsoft was saying Windows on Apple Silicon was “not supported.”

A second possibility is that Parallels figured that that if they built a virtual machine that ran Windows on ARM well enough on Apple Silicon, Microsoft would eventually acquiesce. Parallels originally targeted the consumer market while VMWare focused on enterprises. Gradually Parallels expanded their enterprise efforts, but the consumer market was more likely to experiment with an unsupported OS, enabling them to work out the kinks with a larger beta audience than what is available to VMWare. VMWare waited until it was pretty clear Microsoft wouldn’t shut down the unsupported use of Windows ARM on Apple Silicon Macs. Under this possibility, Microsoft may “authorize” additional products once they achieve acceptable performance.

A related possibility is that Parallels is just more focused on the Mac market than VMWare. They were part of Apple’s original Apple Silicon preview (running Linux).
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
I am just in awe over Coherence. Reducing Windows to just an application is amazing. The integration beside macOS makes it seamless. I plan to purchase it once my trial is over.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
VMWare say they are going to now speed up development on the Windows side of things.

blogs.vmware.com

Microsoft Now Officially Supports Windows on Mac computers with Apple silicon - VMware Fusion Blog

Exciting news out of Redmond today as Microsoft has expressed commitment to fully support Windows on Arm in virtual machines on Apple hardware. After years of development and effort to make Fusion support Windows on Arm _without_ explicit support, and even in the face of ambiguity in several...
blogs.vmware.com blogs.vmware.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
Just received an email today about an upcoming price increase for Parallels. While not a deal-breaking increase, it did cause me to wonder if there're alternatives.

I'd forgotten I had the Fusion Tech Preview installed. Went to the Fusion website today to download whatever is latest, to test, and it seems it's no longer a "Tech Preview".

Fusion has a built-in tool to convert from the VHDX you download from Microsoft, to the VMDK format that Fusion needs:
/Applications/VMware\ Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -r ~/Downloads/Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_25276.VHDX -t 0 ~/Downloads/Windows11_InsiderPreview_Client_ARM64_en-us_25276.vmdk
Click to expand...
Edit: stuck at the installation page where the windows installer was asking for network access, the Next button was grayed out.
 
Last edited:
hunkster said:
Just received an email today about an upcoming price increase for Parallels. While not a deal-breaking increase, it did cause me to wonder if there're alternatives.
Click to expand...
Ugh,
I didn't see that (yet)

I've not used Parallels/Windows on my MBP to the extent that its worth paying even more. I don't know if I bought the sub or not. Either way, I'll make sure it doesn't renew automatically.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
Use UTM for free, attach a network usb->eth interface, access the VM via Microsoft Remote Desktop and enjoy fast Graphic.
 
  • Like
Reactions: wyrdness
As far as I am aware VMware Fusion does not yet support running Windows on ASi Macs. UTM was extremely slow for me with no graphics support, Parallels is much better in that regard. I suppose you might be able to circumvent that with the mentioned Remote Desktop workaround. I haven't tried VirtualBox, perhaps they are better. I suspect Parallels has the very best implementation right now with no real competition, so they know they can charge whatever they want.

I don't know if VMware will ever bother making anything that is competitive with Parallels, since the only version that runs well natively anyways is the Windows 11 ARM edition, and not all software runs well on that, or starts up at all. For more intense Windows-only workloads like CAD applications the virtualization is completely useless anyways. So there's now fewer users than ever that can run their workflows on a Windows on a Mac. Might not be worth developing yet another product for that small customer base.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SB1500
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back