MacTech: Fusion vs. Parallels

I don't have Parallels, but VMware Fusion 2 and 3 both run very slowly for me on Snow Leopard. My brother and I both switched to the free program VirtualBox because of VMware Fusion's slow performance.

I have Fusion 2, Parallels 4, and VirtualBox.
So far I prefer Fusion, because it's the most stable and its use feels more intuitive to me.

When it comes to OpenGL Fusion is no option (version 3 might have OpenGL acceleration, but 2 doesn't) and Parallels is much faster than VirtualBox in that respect.

As for your brother, it might depend on what kind of Mac he has. I once read that VT-x can be even slower than the old software tricks when you don't have virtualized page translation (most often called Nested Pages) as well. But that feature isn't available before the Nehalem, thus only on the new Mac Pros.

I don't have time to read through the article right now, but that can be a speed issue as well. Sometimes hardware isn't faster than software.

You'd be surprised if you actually used VirtualBox TBH M.I.K.e... I use it because VMWare and Parallels continually have price battles and charge for updates that really don't offer all that much. I've found that VirtualBox runs at a compet*tive speed; it's definitely a serious contender...

Parallels has always felt like the fastest to me, but nobody seems to rate it. I still respect that they were the first solution for the Mac; VMWare has a LOT more money, but they made us wait for a less-complete product (although they've caught up now.) They also used their commercial advantage to offer free updates...etc when Parallels was milking users for minor feature updates.

So for me:
Virtual Box - Stand-out winner... has all the same features and it's free. Maybe it's a bit slower? I've never noticed...

Parallels - Is the fastest, but a little more expensive. They're also good at delivering beta's whereas VMWare makes you wait.

VMWare - Has a solid commercial reputation and delivers a great product. It's a bit cheaper (only because they can do it...) but TBH offers nothing that Parallels doesn't, and is always playing catch-up on features.

I certainly throw in my hat for VirtualBox. Parallels' Linux support is poor at best, and it's awfully difficult to justify spending anything more than $0 for virtualisation when VirtualBox is so capable.

I actually did try VirtualBox. I haven't really tested the new version 3, I think I had 2.2.
One thing I tested was Half-Life. It worked, but the sound was kinda choppy. It definitely ran better in Parallels. But I'd run OpenGL games via Crossover nowadays anyway.

I'm not sure about the new Direct3D acceleration. But I guess it couldn't be that much worse than that in the other VMs.

One thing that might prove interesting in the future is the question if VirtualBox will be developed further, now that Sun has been bought by Oracle. I hope it will be, because it is a very good option for those who don't want to buy Fusion or Parallels. In terms of bang for the buck VirtualBox obviously beats the other contenders in the first round.

I also bought Parallels because I wanted to know if it was more compatible. I also give them credit for being there first and inventing lots of cool new features that are now copied by the others. I also believe that it is due to the Parallels pricing that Fusion is cheaper than VMware Workstation (although on Windows the VMware Player is for free and it's getting better and better).

When I decided what VM to get, I read lots of tests, reports, and user feedback. Originally I wanted to buy Parallels first, but especially user feedback mentioned a lot of stability issues with Parallels, while VMware was supposed to be rock solid. So I bought Fusion first. Back then VirtualBox hadn't been properly ported to OSX yet, so it wasn't an option.

All have their advantages and disadvantages, and I have to admit that if certain software doesn't work anyway, and the other stuff is just a small tool every now and then, I don't really care that much about speed. I've lived so long with the speed of Virtual PC 7 on a G5, that every VM is miles ahead, but in relation to VPC they are also quite close together.

One thing that worked on VPC7 but doesn't work on any VM is BeOS. I think I read somewhere that when Microsoft bought Virtual PC from Connectix, they found a few bugs during a code review. One of that fixes managed to get BeOS to install. Unfortunately, as I said, that just doesn't work with Parallels, Fusion, or VirtualBox.

In the end, just use what works for you. If you don't know if you should buy a commercial product, give VirtualBox a try. It might be just what you need, and you safe a lot of money.