Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Xen VS Parallels

Compare Xen VS Parallels and see what are their differences

Xen logo Xen

Xen Project: Open Source Hypervisor, High Performance Clouds, Free Software, Open Source Virtualization, Open Virtualization, Cloud Computing, Desktop Virtualization, Mobile Virtualization, Embedded Virtualization.

Parallels logo Parallels

Parallels Desktop is a virtualization software for Mac users to run Windows and Linux apps on OS X.
  • Xen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-12-16
  • Parallels Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-17

Xen videos

Black Mesa: Xen Review - Finally

More videos:

  • Review - Analysis: Black Mesa Xen

Parallels videos

Parallels Desktop vs VMware Fusion Review | Best Mac Apps

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Parallels Access for iOS - Mini Video Tutorial
  • 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 Xen and Parallels)
Cloud Computing
45 45%
55% 55
Virtualization
39 39%
61% 61
Virtual Machine Management
Virtualization Platform
26 26%
74% 74

User comments

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Reviews

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

Xen Reviews

What are the Top Most Open Source Virtualization Software?
It is often treated as the default standard in Linux hypervisors. Xen is known to be an excellent open source for paravirtualization.
Best Server Virtualization Software
A free, open-source virtual machine monitor (VMM), Xen Project was initially designed by a team at Cambridge University. The team later created their own company centered around Xen Project, which was purchased by Citrix. Since then, Xen Project has partnered with The Linux Foundation as part of its work to drive collaborative tools.
8 Free & Best Open source bare metal hypervisors (Foss)
Xen is an open-source software platform or Linux hypervisor distro maintained by the global community of developers It supports virtualization for x86, x86_64, IA64, ARM, and other CPU architectures. The Xen hypervisor is an enterprise-class alternative to proprietary virtualization platforms and hypervisors for x86 and IA64 platforms. Besides the open-source, it also...
Best VirtualBox Alternatives & Competitors [Top 7 2019]
Xen is the best VirtualBox alternatives and super functional without altering the hard disk of your computer. Hence, emulate the most popular such as IA-32, IA-64, x86, x86-64 e PowerPC 970. Execute, the best systems without a lag. Experience the same quality on multiple platforms at the same level as your native operating system with Xen.
Introduction to Top Open Source Virtualization Tools
Xen is a hypervisor that started out as a Microsoft backed startup at the University of Cambridge and has now risen to become one of the best Linux hypervisors. The Xen Hypervisor is inserted between the server’s hardware and the operating system. This creates an abstraction layer that allows multiple guest operating systems to be concurrently executed on a single physical...

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, Xen should be more popular than Parallels. It has been mentiond 10 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.

Xen mentions (10)

  • Best virtualization solution with Ubuntu 22.04
    If you want an all around easy to use tool that can manager containers (create on the fly, delete when unnecessary, etc.) look into vagrant. There are also options like xen and virtualbox but they are not so lightweight. All of them are in ubuntu repositories. Source: 12 months ago
  • Modular building blocks: The case of Amazon
    On the other hand, EC2 was built in isolation by a team of two, Chris Pinkham and Chris Brown, working remotely from South Africa. The idea behind building EC2 was to allow developers to build and run their application on Amazon’s servers, regardless of what type of application it was. The plan was to build EC2 on top of an open source tool called Xen which made it possible to run several applications on one... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Announcing Rust 1.68.0
    There was of course a generation where Xen was the way to make kernel-level containers, but those kernels still had to communicate with a form of ABI. I barely used Xen so I can't say how many of the same concerns apply, but in any case, userland containers won out over kernel containers in the end, and I'm glad for it. Source: about 1 year ago
  • XSAs released on 2022-11-01
    Qubes OS uses the Xen hypervisor as part of its architecture. When the Xen Project publicly discloses a vulnerability in the Xen hypervisor, they issue a notice called a Xen security advisory (XSA). Vulnerabilities in the Xen hypervisor sometimes have security implications for Qubes OS. When they do, we issue a notice called a Qubes security bulletin (QSB). (QSBs are also issued for non-Xen vulnerabilities.)... Source: over 1 year ago
  • A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal.
    It depends greatly on the implementation you use and the rest of the tooling you use. Using QEMU+KVM directly & raw is very different from using libvirt-backed (which abstracts over various other backends like Xen [virt-manager])(https://virt-manager.org/) (which is a lot closer to the VirtualBox experience) to make the whole experience easier and simpler). Source: almost 2 years ago
View more

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: 11 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: 11 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: about 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Xen 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...

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

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.

OpenStack - OpenStack software controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, managed through a dashboard or via the OpenStack API.

Hyper-V - Install Hyper-V on Windows 10