Comparison of VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop
Represented by their respective products, VMware and Parallels are the two major commercial competitors in the Mac consumer virtualization market. The similarity in features and functionality between VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac has given occasion for much comparison.
Features
Both products allow users to run an additional operating system in a virtual machine alongside Mac OS X. Fusion offers several features targeted towards a professional environment, such as 64-bit and SMP hardware support, while Parallels Desktop trends more towards an end-user environment, offering features such as SmartSelect and a more comprehensive Share Folders function.
Product |
64-bit support |
SMP support |
Max RAM per VM |
DirectX support |
Bluetooth support |
USB 2.0 support |
Power management function |
Integrated window function |
Boot Camp support |
VM conversion function |
Multiple display support |
File integration function |
Snapshot support |
OpenGL support |
VM explorer function |
Smart selection function |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
VMware Fusion 1.1 |
8 GB |
1 |
||||||||||||||
Parallels Desktop 3.0 |
2 GB |
2 |
3 |
|||||||||||||
1Must install Apple Boot Camp drivers.
2Not enabled by default.
3Shared folders and virtual mirroring of Document folders.
Performance
Some reviewers, such as Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, have observed that Fusion has a smaller impact on overall system performance than Parallels Desktop. On August 16, 2007, CNET published the results of several benchmarks in which Fusion demonstrated better performance than Parallels Desktop for Mac in SMP-aware applications, which Fusion supports while Parallels does not. It should also be noted that Boot Camp is a tool for natively booting Windows XP on Intel Macintosh, and is not a virtualization product.
This comparison was tested on an eight-core, 2.66GHz MacPro running Mac OS X 10.4.10, Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac (build 4560) and VMware Fusion 1.0 (build 51348). Fusion and Parallels were both set to 1,024 MB of system memory and a 32 GB hard disk. Fusion was set to 128 MB of graphics memory, and Parallels Desktop for Mac was set to 64 MB of graphics memory (the maximum for each).
See also
- Comparison of virtual machines for a list of related virtualization software products