virtualisation: vmware vs parallels?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 82943
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 82943

Guest
All I need is a vm software package to run win 7 so that I can run office 2010 mostly for vba excel apps.

my most sought after feature is seamlessness, It'd be fantastic to just run excel without having to see the window for win7 desktop or anything ...

my question is which would be better: vmware fusion 4, or paralells 7, or virtualbox...?
 
I use VMWare on my MacBook Pro for testing and training on Windows OS. It has a feature called Unity where it "peels" the program window of a Windows program out of the virtual OS window and lets it float around on your Mac as if it was a regular window. It's really neat. VirtualBox doesn't have that but I've heard Parallels has a similar feature.
 
Parallels has Coherence Mode which does that, puts the Windows 7 apps in an OSX window. I have parallels 6 for reference, don't know about other versions.
 
VMware Fusion. Parallels has been nothing but a nightmare for my clients and I've seen a lot of stability issues personally on my development machines. Parallels is also constantly pushing new major updates and wanting a pile of money for each one and drop support for the last one immediately whereas VMware actually has decent upgrade pricing and upgrades you for free for a pretty long period after purchase if a new one comes out.
 
VMWare Fusion is simply the best. Tried-and-true virtualization, the best Guest OS drivers, and the best support (if you need it).
Virtualbox is good, and really a solid product. It's open source and totally free (at least for right now; it's owned by Oracle). If you are not sure what your needs are, VBox is a great place to start trying out virtualization and deciding if you need a commercial package for what you want to do. Virtualbox supports "seamless mode" which is analogous to Unity on VMWare or Coherence on Parallels.
 
I got Parallels 6 for free and I use it sparingly. While I haven't noticed any instability I would trust what the other guys have to say about VMWare being better, it's not the first time I've heard that.
 
I know Parallels has better graphics performance, but I'm not gaming, and if I was gaming in Windows, I'd be using Bootcamp anyway.

I use VMWare Fusion every day for a Server 2008 R2 VM with Visual Studio 2010 for my programming classes and server management classes, it's been rock solid and even since version 1 I've preferred VMWare to Parallels, and I own both, the most recent versions even.

I just prefer VMWare, Parallels got a name for being the first to the party but after having to download a new build every week it seemed like because there were all these bugs, and these builds were released on the forums only mind you.. omg, when VMWare came out I rejoiced! Finally, a name I could trust, and it was the first with multi-core CPU support in the VM's, phew! Anyway, VMWare has been my choice since that nightmare of keeping up with Parallels incompetence.

I haven't tried Vbox on the Mac, but we use it in class on Windows and it works just fine, if all you need is a VM, I wouldn't *not* trust Vbox, but I'd avoid Parallels like the plague, it's probably better now, but I just don't believe in it.
 
VMWare Fusion is by far better. I own Parallels 6 (and a couple previous versions) and I own Fusion 4 (and all the previous versions). I use Fusion almost every day. Every once in a while I get tempted to buy/use (depending on if an update is available) Parallels and I always come away feeling very frustrated. Parallels never runs as smoothly as Fusion does and always (no matter the system resources you have) seems to cause the base system to run like crap. On these same systems, I can run Fusion and not even notice it's running.
 
I too use Fusion 4 and have nothing but good things to say about how it runs. I use an OCZ Vertex 3 SSD in my MBP and notice no performance hit at all to either the VM or to the primary OS.
 
I haven't used Parallels in years, but have been using Fusion since its first commercial release. It does everything I need it to do, and does it well.
 
hmm...could i install both and run one at a time and see which is faster for my use without any conflicts?
 
hmm...could i install both and run one at a time and see which is faster for my use without any conflicts?

Yup, this will not cause any conflicts, however each app will need its own specific VM to run. So if you are tight on space, this may be an issue.

I was running VMware for a bit, then once school started I had the opportunity to purchase parallels 7 at a discounted price. After several weeks of testing both, I uninstalled VMware and never looked back. For me Parallels just runs better and has better integration with Lion on my MBP.
 
I have been using Parallels for over a year, I think it's time to shelf it and try VMWare Fusion.
 
VMware Fusion 4.1 now treats full-screen in Lion correctly and maximizes to a new space instead of requiring a manually made desktop space.
 
I've used both, like them both, and at present am running fusion on my 2010 MPB nottaproblemo :)
 
I have been using Parallels for over a year, I think it's time to shelf it and try VMWare Fusion.

After using this for about 3 hours, I noticed a ton of glitchyness with my workflow. May work for others, but doesn't work for me. Reinstalled Parallels 7. Yes - i had the latest updates.
 
i ended up trying paralells out and it works just fine for me, on a full charge my estimated battery life goes from 6.5hrs to 4ish hrs which is a bummer but a necessary evil i guess
 
according to that link vbox has a seamlessmode how does that perform?
 
according to that link vbox has a seamlessmode how does that perform?

It works well. It's on par with Unity (VMWare's implementation) and Coherence (Parallels). They're all basically doing the same thing.
 
I used to have Parallels on Leopard. After a while it stopped updating itself (it would always fail). When I upgraded to Snow Leopard it told me that it doesn't run on Snow Leopard. Which is kind of douchey, so I crossgraded to VMware Fusion and have been a very happy camper.
 
Back
Top