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So Parallels Desktop 5 is out! About a week after VMWare Fusion 3.
Both are awesome, but I guess it depends on what you’re doing that determines which one you want to buy. Here are some viewpoints and yeah. Don’t take me on my word, both offer trials, but this is just from my experience.
If you’re developing, I say go with VMWare Fusion 3. VMWare Fusion 3 feels more stable and crashes less on me. Parallels is pretty stable, but I run into a few quirks every once in a while (mainly with how the windows move or programs closing without notice).
VMWare Fusion also offers some cooler integration features (in my opinion). Both show the windows notification area, but VMWare introduces an application menu as well (which works on Linux as well, at least Ubuntu). Parallels shows the start menu if you click on the icon in Mac’s Dock (while in Unity), but it shows the Windows start menu, not feeling very Mac-like. Okay, okay… that’s not really development related, but when I’m testing stuff, I like feeling some connection between everything.
As for speed, Parallels does feel faster, and it does perform some tasks faster, but it’s not as stable. I’ve had Visual Studio crash a couple of times so far while it’s pretty stable in VMWare Fusion.
Not that I do much gaming. Parallels wins. That sums it up. Sure VMWare has made tons of improvements, but it’s not as good as Parallel’s. I’ll post a video running some stuff in Parallels, then running in VMWare. I play some simple games, like The Secret of Monkey Island, and there’s a difference.
So if you’re gaming, then I suggest using Parallels. Some of the bigger games will die or slow down (in both Parallel’s Desktop 5 and VMWare Fusion 3), but the games that do run tend to run better in Parallels.
I say go with either. Parallels is less stable with some applications, but for general office and productivity applications, it ran well. VMWare runs fine too.
If you’re buying it to run general Windows apps under Mac OS X, then pick either. If you want to watch some wmv’s under it, pick either.
Go with VirtualBox. It provides a really awesome Linux experience… The only issue is it doesn’t integrate with Exposè or the Dock. It does do OpenGL and DirectX (for Windows) though (I think).
If you don’t want to use VirtualBox (because you’re running multiple VM’s at once, or just want to spend some money), I say go with VMWare Fusion 3. In my opinion, the features offered by VMWare beat Parallels making the Linux experience better. It’s mainly just how they handle the “Unity” or “Coherence” modes.
Like I said, it depends on what you’re using it for. I feel safer with VMWare Fusion 3. It feels more stable, but it is also somewhat sluggish. If you’re developing, or just looking to run simple Windows apps, VMWare Fusion is good.
For gaming, I like Parallels better. It’s faster, and the graphics seem smoother. It also support OpenGL 2 on all versions of Windows, unlike VMWare which only support OpenGL 2 on Windows XP (or is it the other way around?).
Hope this helps you. Don’t blame me if you spend but don’t like, there’s a free trial for both.
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Parallels 5 has a special Windows Applicatiojs folder in Dock which is equal to Fusion menu in Mac menu area.
Spoken by Alex Frost on November 5th, 2009 at 3:35 amAbout Office compatibility. Fusion 3 has a copy-paste buffer limitation. It is limited to 4 MB only. It is not enough to exchange pictures.
Spoken by Alex Frost on November 5th, 2009 at 3:36 amWhat kinds of machine are you running? I have not had any Parallels or Fusion crashes. Right now I am running P4 on a Black MacBook to access my BootCamp partition. While F3 offers a few nicer integration features, the admin password requirement is really annoying. This is not required by P4 or P5. I compared P4 to F3 on a boot race and it seems that P4 was marginally faster. I ran into several problems with F3 refusing to automatically load a shared file once it opened. What I did was put a word document from the shared folder in to my Windows startup folder and hit start on the Virtual machine. I then timed how long it took to reach the working point. Most of the time F3 never made it.
Despite their claims, neither program P5 or F3 provide a true shared clipboard, which is an upgrade deal breaker for me because that is my main complaint with P4.
Spoken by Paul on November 5th, 2009 at 10:19 amHello,
I was wondering what specifically have you enjoyed about Parallels gaming? If you could e-mail me back that would be great.
Cheers.
Spoken by ashley on November 12th, 2009 at 12:32 pmI have an iMac (2.66 GHz, 4 GB ram) and the black macBook (2.16 GHz, 2 GB ram).
Parallels Desktop 5 is faster on boot and feels a lot smoother as it runs, but it does take up more background processes about 15% with Vista, while VMWare Fusion only takes about 5% with Vista. I don’t use the boot camp partition in either of them. I’ve never tried that start-up thing you’re talking about.
Parallels crashes on my when I use Aero and switch between the different view modes. It also crashes sometimes when sharing files. Fusion doesn’t crash as often. Changing view modes is fine (although Parallels does look nicer in my opinion), and if there’s a problem sharing a file, it just doesn’t load the file.
I’m not too picky about the clipboard, but I have noticed some limitations.
Spoken by TwiRp on November 14th, 2009 at 1:03 pmMy issue with that is I can’t find an option to hide it when Parallels isn’t running.
Spoken by TwiRp on November 14th, 2009 at 1:03 pmFor the Visual C++ dev, I’ve made some compilation bench between the 2 … conclusion is obvious:-) http://tmenguy.free.fr/TechBlog/?p=481
Spoken by Thomas on November 15th, 2009 at 10:27 am[...] has a good head to head fusion v3 vs Parallels 5 comparison also: He prefers VMWare for dev… I don’t due to the size of our projects, I’m [...]
Spoken by Parallels 5 vs VMWare fusion 3 for the visual studio developper, compilation benchs | Everything and the Mobile Software Universe... on November 18th, 2009 at 3:15 amCan you think of any reason why Fusion 2.06 stops showing apps in the dock? Or why everytime I try to run Fusion 3.0 it hangs while starting up? Or where one might actually get live tech support for Fusion?
Spoken by WC on December 5th, 2009 at 1:17 amThanks for the great info! I ran this question by Skeeter over at mac village, and would greatly appreciate your take.
Which VM would do best for a slower machine running productivity apps rather than games? I’m running the latest Macbook Air, which tops out at 2GHZ duo and 2GB Ram. I don’t plan on doing any graphics work besides basic maps (GIS) and Microsoft Office. I’d do boot camp, but the clunky file-sharing options with that seem prohibitive.
Any advice?
Don
Spoken by Don on December 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pmIt turns out that VMware is quite more stable in terms of kernel extension implementation than Parallels. Your remarks to the stability are perfectly within reason and are the rule. I wish Parallels would get on the ball and stop being so hackish.
Spoken by Joe on December 20th, 2009 at 11:05 pm