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VMware Fusion 11 Released With Support for macOS Mojave, 18-Core iMac Pro, and More

macpanzer said:
How is Parallels a better deal?

$99.99/year means you will have to keep paying EVERY year to use the software (whether you actually install a version upgrade or not).

VMware is a one time payment, you can run the version you paid for for many years. The choice when to upgrade and make a new payment is yours.
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I realize why some folks are reluctant, as some vendors only improve the product in minor incremental way yet still charge subscription. And even if the update is major, some customers may feel they are not major enough to warrant an upgrade.

But I am reasonably happy with new features and improvements that are being added to VMWare Fusion to justify upgrading to new major version all the time.

Also, the subscription pricing alleviates the fear of buying a software in middle or late product release cycle (I believe both vendors offer free upgrade only if you purchased within the last 30 days or so).

So if subscription means I can save about $20/year and always use the latest version of Fusion, I will sign up.
 
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I have being upgrading Fusion from 8 to 10, and let me tell you it is the same product since 8 in a lot os aspects and most importantly in performance. But with Fusion I can decide not to pay and still run my current version for as long as possible.

[UPDATE]: I tried version 11 with the improved support for NVMe drives. It is worth it, a noticeable performance increase. For that sole reason I would upgrade.
 
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macpanzer said:
How is Parallels a better deal?

$99.99/year means you will have to keep paying EVERY year to use the software (whether you actually install a version upgrade or not).

VMware is a one time payment, you can run the version you paid for for many years. The choice when to upgrade and make a new payment is yours.
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There is a standalone version of Parallels - it costs $99 and it's a one time purchase.
 
Feenician said:
Holy crap, I did not know that.

Well, to answer your question, I think that's the best bet for virtualizing macOS for free. If you come to want to virtualize Windows for some reason and want that to be free give VirtualBox a try. Windows virtualization on it is ok (not great, but ok).
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Hey happy to help! Yeah I figured as much. I just prefer VMWare. Beggars can’t be choosers! Seems odd though to me that there wouldn’t be some better Mac/Mac solution.
 
I don't mind paying for good software that I use frequently and provides value. My main gripe with VMware Fusion is that the yearly upgrade price for the pro edition is the same for an owner of the previous pro edition or owners of the standard edition. There should be a bigger discount for a pro upgrade from pro (such as $80 at most).
Looking at the pro changes from 10 to 11 they do seem more incremental and though I do like the improvement in vsphere support, I just can't justify the $120 upgrade price again. We will see after running some tests.
In terms of licensing, there is no comparison. With Parallels, as soon as you stop paying the subscription you won't be able to run your VM's. That is just crazy and which is why I switched from Parallels to VMware together with Virtualbox a long ago and never looked back. At the beginning that was a great company before they lost their way.
 
I've been trying to use VMWare each time a new version comes out. Unfortunately, the way Fusion handles Windows scaling on a 4K monitor is a disaster. I've used all possible options, but I never managed to set a configuration that would allow me to work with my Windows apps with no distortions. Also, fonts smoothing is better on Parallels.
 
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I've been using Fusion 11 Pro most of the day now and can say it handles system resources significantly better than Fusion 10.

I run four windows 7 vms with remote access and one windows 10 vm in unity mode simultaneously on an 8 core Xeon. (Something Parallels could never do well.)

Runs smooth without beach beach balls or hangups.

Well worth the upgrade price in my opinion. Now if I could just get NVMe working on Windows 7...
 
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Arty6 said:
They could release patches to support new OSs that come out. Instead, whenever you upgrade your OS you have to pay to upgrade Parallels/VMWare in order for it to even be functional. It’s a racket, plain and simple.
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Yeah, it's extortion. They don't actually have to pay engineers and stuff to upgrade the code; it's all done by self-writing code nanobots, so it costs them nothing. Criminal!
 
I can’t believe some y’all are complaining about paying for software. Fusion is a great piece of software, and there is no forced upgrade/subscription required. If you like the new features, pay the price to support their development. They are allowing upgrade pricing back to version 8, which came out over 3 years ago!

They also have sales on their software. Keep an eye out for Black Friday, they usually have a discounted price on that day.
 
RumorConsumer said:
Hey happy to help! Yeah I figured as much. I just prefer VMWare. Beggars can’t be choosers! Seems odd though to me that there wouldn’t be some better Mac/Mac solution.
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macOS actually has some VM fundamentals built in
(Hypervisor.framework https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hypervisor)

but not a great deal has been done with it. There was a port of the BSD virtualization (bhyve) on top of it called xhyve and I think Docker ultimately used that (and I believe extended and changed the name again) to host Docker for Mac. I haven't looked in a while but I was surprised no-one has used Hypervisor and xhyve to build something more natively for macOS. I think the really hard bits are when you get to graphics virtualization so that might be why.
 
Feenician said:
I was surprised no-one has used Hypervisor and xhyve to build something more natively for macOS. I think the really hard bits are when you get to graphics virtualization so that might be why.
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Veertu does. They've pivoted to developer stuff, though. I'm not sure they ever bothered with consumer-oriented features like graphics virtualization, file sharing, etc.
 
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chucker23n1 said:
Veertu does. They've pivoted to developer stuff, though. I'm not sure they ever bothered with consumer-oriented features like graphics virtualization, file sharing, etc.
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Looks neat. Shame there's no trial. I'd like to take a look. I could probably request one but then they'll hound me, I'm sure!

I wonder if they're using xhyve, or rolled their own.
 
Feenician said:
Looks neat. Shame there's no trial. I'd like to take a look. I could probably request one but then they'll hound me, I'm sure!

I wonder if they're using xhyve, or rolled their own.
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They do say they use bhyve/xhyve.

I think before the pivot, they had a free App Store app that did non-Windows operating systems, and you could buy Windows support as a paid add-on for $40-ish.
 
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One other thing I will say as it relates to Fusion and Parallels. One thing that always drove me nuts about Parallels is how much it affects the host machine. I had employees that had it and it was a PITA to uninstall as it had its hooks all over MacOS. (Maybe it's gotten better, I ditched it years ago.). I've never had any such issue with Fusion.
 
I saw this article and my blood pressure ticked up as I ended up buying Fusion 10 2 weeks ago as I had hit the end of a trial period and needed it to do a firmware update on a piece of equipment where there is no MacOS updater.

I logged in to my VMWare account to see if there was any update discount and was pleasantly surprised to see this in an account alert:

Date 2018/09/25 (02:30 PST) Category License Management
You are covered by the VMware Technology Guarantee Program (TGP) and eligible to receive a complimentary electronic upgrade. License keys are located in the Technology Guarantee Program folder.
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And sure enough, there is a new key for 11. So if you have bought recently, check to see if you have a message.

Looking further, it appears the dates are August 20 - September 25 for Fusion 10 as well as Workstation Player/Pro 14:

  1. Customers who have purchased VMware Fusion 10.x Pro/Fusion 10.x from August 20th, 2018 through September 26th, 2018 are covered by the Technology Guarantee Program and are eligible for a complimentary electronic upgrade to VMware Fusion 11.x Pro/Fusion 11.x.

  2. Customers who have purchased VMware Fusion 10.x Pro/Fusion 10.x electronically from VMware or a VMware reseller during this time period automatically receive a new VMware Fusion 11/Fusion 11 Pro license key(s) through email before November 1st, 2018. The license keys are delivered to your My VMware account in the Technology Guarantee Program folder. No action is required by the customer to receive the upgrade.
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Hope this helps someone else that has made a recent purchase.
 
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I’ve stuck with VMWare mostly because of their ecosystem - I can save an image from a foreign system using their free software, and run it under Fusion. Just bought the Pro upgrade, no regrets.
 
dbrothers said:
I’ve stuck with VMWare mostly because of their ecosystem - I can save an image from a foreign system using their free software, and run it under Fusion. Just bought the Pro upgrade, no regrets.
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What is their free software?
 
Good that VMWare is catering for SSD performance inside virtual machines now. It doesn't make sense on a physical SSD, these days on Mac, to include an ATA/SCSI virtual HD, within the VM

You'll have more performance hit due to that
 
OldSchoolMacGuy said:
HOW DARE THEY OFFER SIGNIFICANT UPDATES WHICH REQUIRE TONS OF WORK AND RESOURCES AND EXPECT TO BE PAID FOR IT!

I'm sure you work for free at your job.
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Please do point to those “SIGNIFICANT UPDATES” that justify the same price point as Fusion 10 (which was indeed a significant upgrade and was well worth the upgrade $). No, UI changes don’t qualify. They might as well change to a subscription model at this point.
 
Does Fusion finally support graphics acceleration for Mac OS VMs? I tried creating a Yosemite VM in Fusion a few years ago and it looked like I was running System 7 again with the UI all flat and white because of no "transparency" support. It also did not support screen resolutions higher than 1024x768.
 
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Feenician said:
macOS actually has some VM fundamentals built in
(Hypervisor.framework https://developer.apple.com/documentation/hypervisor)

but not a great deal has been done with it. There was a port of the BSD virtualization (bhyve) on top of it called xhyve and I think Docker ultimately used that (and I believe extended and changed the name again) to host Docker for Mac. I haven't looked in a while but I was surprised no-one has used Hypervisor and xhyve to build something more natively for macOS. I think the really hard bits are when you get to graphics virtualization so that might be why.
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Minikube does utilise it :) But, old habits die hard and I still use VMWare Fusion as the driver for my local Kubernetes clusters.

Saying that, can’t see anything of interest in this upgrade. I’ll keep the money.
 
acgmph said:
Please do point to those “SIGNIFICANT UPDATES” that justify the same price point as Fusion 10 (which was indeed a significant upgrade and was well worth the upgrade $). No, UI changes don’t qualify. They might as well change to a subscription model at this point.
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They moved the graphics stack to Metal, support newer Direct3D, added NVMe, made enhancements to ESX integration, … no, you’re right. Just UI changes.
 
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