Software Alternatives & Reviews

VMware Fusion VS Parallels

Compare VMware Fusion VS Parallels and see what are their differences

VMware Fusion logo VMware Fusion

Simple and powerful virtual machine for Mac. Mac virtualization software. Learn more about VMware Fusion and try it free today.

Parallels logo Parallels

Parallels Desktop is a virtualization software for Mac users to run Windows and Linux apps on OS X.
  • VMware Fusion Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-19
  • Parallels Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-17

VMware Fusion videos

Parallels Desktop vs VMware Fusion Review | Best Mac Apps

More videos:

  • Review - VMWare Fusion 11 Performance
  • Review - Parallels Desktop vs VMWare Fusion - PERFORMANCE Comparison! Who WON?

Parallels videos

Parallels Access for iOS - Mini Video Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Parallels Desktop vs VMware Fusion Review | Best Mac Apps
  • Review - First Look: Parallels Access for iPad Pro
  • Review - Parallels 15 Review - The Top 3 Features That Will Excite You + Giveaway
  • Review - Hands-on: Windows on Mac with Parallels 13
  • Review - Parallels Desktop 18 - Test and Review. Better Performance? Get Windows on M2-M1, M1 Pro MacBook
  • Review - Parallels 18 for Apple Silicon M1 / M2 Mac Review - The Best ARM Windows experience is Still a Mac!
  • Review - My Parallels 17 first impressions | Windows 11 on a Mac

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VMware Fusion and Parallels)
Cloud Computing
58 58%
42% 42
Virtualization
59 59%
41% 41
Virtual Machine Management
Virtualization Platform
43 43%
57% 57

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare VMware Fusion and Parallels

VMware Fusion Reviews

Best Alternatives of VirtualBox for Windows
No discussion of virtualization software can be complete without mentioning Parallels Desktop. Parallels Desktop is a direct competitor to VMware Fusion and Fusion Pro, and even offers two versions: one for personal use and one for business. Parallels Desktop does everything VMware Fusion does with a few subtle differences. It also allows Mac and Windows to run...
10 Best VMware Alternatives and Similar Software
VMware’s services include virtualization, networking and security management tools, and storage, to name a few. VMware vSphere is a server virtualization tool for deploying and managing large-scale virtual machine infrastructures. VMware vSphere, often known as a virtualized data center system, allows IT departments to deploy workloads on the most cost-effective...
Best Free Virtual Machine Software in 2022 – Start Your New Career
And about performance, they both perform okay for me when not so heavily used, but in my testing of VMware player and server on Windows 7 and Ubuntu host systems, no matter what sort of VM I am running, if I start using the disk heavily, the system crawls. With VMware player (Windows 7 or Ubuntu), the system eventually becomes completely non-responsive. The vmware-vmx...
12 Best FREE Virtual Machine (VM) Software in 2020
VMware Fusion for Mac is Virtual Machine software. This tool is known for cloud computing and virtualization software. It allows you to use multiple applications on different OS at the same time.
Source: www.guru99.com
7 VirtualBox Alternatives You Can Consider
This virtualization software gives tough competition to big names like VMware Fusion and VMware Workstation pro when it comes to simultaneously running two OS. It is advertised for running Windows on Mac because for years it was only available for Mac users. But now a Windows version is also available with support for Linux and Chrome OS as a guest operating system. It works...

Parallels Reviews

Top 5 Alternatives to Citrix: Workspace Management Software for Secure Access to Applications and Desktops
One of the most notable features of Parallels RAS vs. Citrix is that it offers its service in a low price range that competes with alternatives like Inuvika. However, it needs to combine Parallels RAS and Awingu to compete with the complete feature set of Inuvika or VMware when delivering full Windows and Linux integration for digital workspace software. There is no current...
Best Alternatives of VirtualBox for Windows
No discussion of virtualization software can be complete without mentioning Parallels Desktop. Parallels Desktop is a direct competitor to VMware Fusion and Fusion Pro, and even offers two versions: one for personal use and one for business. Parallels Desktop does everything VMware Fusion does with a few subtle differences. It also allows Mac and Windows to run...
Best Free Virtual Machine Software in 2022 – Start Your New Career
Here is another excellent premium product. They are popular among Mac users. If you don’t know much about these VM programs, then you should go for the Parallels software. You can conveniently locate the ISO installation file and use this file. Moreover, you can download the hypervisor to your system with ease.
Best remote desktop software of 2021: Paid and free choices for businesses
One of our favorite things about Parallels Access is its tidy user interface. Rather than simply showing your desktop screen on a mobile device, like most of its competitors do, it presents a modified, mobile-friendly version. Overall, this program is a great choice for those who want to remotely access their computer from a mobile device.
12 Best FREE Virtual Machine (VM) Software in 2020
Parallels is the fastest, easiest, and virtual desktop application for running Windows or in Mac devices without the need to reboot. It allows you to deploy hundreds of installations in no time with Parallels.
Source: www.guru99.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Parallels seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 5 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

VMware Fusion mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of VMware Fusion yet. Tracking of VMware Fusion recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Parallels mentions (5)

  • How/where to download windows for macbook with M1 for free?
    I've watched multiple videos and gone to many websites to find a good way to download windows on my macbook for free but the closest thing I found was parallels.com but that's only a 14 day free trial and if I had the money to pay for the full version I'd just get a pc lol. Source: 10 months ago
  • Can I use a Mac?
    You can use a Mac, then use Parallels or Virtual Box for any virtual machines you might need(I prefer Parallels). There are Educational versions of Windows amongst other Microsoft products available to you through NJIT. Source: 10 months ago
  • VBA Userforms Excel Mac 2022
    After hours of frustration and looking for add-ins and loopholes, I finally found a solution to getting userforms into VBA mac. I downloaded a virtual browser though https://parallels.com/ and have successfully been able to edit script and then run the file on my native OS through excel mac. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Please note that Boot Camp currently does not support Apple Silicon Macs (M1/Pro/Max/Ultra and later)
    Running Windows under a virtual machine is possible however with a free solution such as UTM or a paid solution such as Parallels Desktop for Mac. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Windows Parallels - is this the best option for me?
    Secondly, is that parallels.com website legit? It gives me the phishy vibes. Source: almost 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing VMware Fusion and Parallels, you can also consider the following products

VirtualBox - VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as...

QEMU - QEMU (short for "Quick EMUlator") is a free and open-source hosted hypervisor that...

Proxmox VE - Proxmox is an open-source server virtualization management solution that offers the ability to manage virtual server technology with the Linux OpenVZ and KVM technology.

VMware Workstation - VMware Workstation is a multiple operating system handler to easily evaluate the any other type of new operating systems.

Hyper-V - Install Hyper-V on Windows 10

vSphere - Get started with VMware vSphere editions, the world’s leading server virtualization platform and the best foundation for your apps, your cloud, and your business.