Shootout: Parallels outperforms VMware Fusion in many tests

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  • Reply 21 of 45
    hezekiahbhezekiahb Posts: 448member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    I bought Fusion and installed it yesterday. My primary consideration was the issues other AI members had with Parallels support and them reneging on specific upgrade promises to early adopters.



    I can't scale back a volume's size though, I wish I started out smaller. I have only installed three apps and the security updates, and the image is already about 8GB in size, and this is Windows XP. I thought XP was a lot smaller than this.



    When you are all don open the vmware tools inside XP & try running "shrink".



    Think 8GB is bad, my vista volume is hogging up about 17GB, course I have Office installed so that doesn't help.
  • Reply 22 of 45
    mr_cmr_c Posts: 1member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    Yeah, why do these comparisons never mention VirtualBox? Come on AI, you should have taken MacTech to task over this. All I know is that VirtualBox exists and runs on OS X, it'd be nice if someone would include it in these head-to-heads to shed light on whether it's any good or not.



    I agree completely - it would have been VERY interesting to see how a FREE product compares to the pay for competition. Hopefully they'll do it soon
  • Reply 23 of 45
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr_C View Post


    I agree completely - it would have been VERY interesting to see how a FREE product compares to the pay for competition. Hopefully they'll do it soon



    Ars Technica did reviews on Parallels and Fusion and follow-up with a brief review of VirtualBox. They mainly looked at it from a functional perspective where I believe there conclusion is that it's usable as a basic virtualization solution, particularly if you are using XP. It doesn't have the features or the polish of commercial products though. But given that it's $0, it's still a great alternative for light Windows work or as an introduction to virtualization.



    http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews...tualbox-21.ars
  • Reply 24 of 45
    trip1extrip1ex Posts: 109member
    I installed Virtual Box and installed XP in a virtual machine since I last posted 90 minutes ago. Also ran the guest additions iso (in the package contents) which gives you integrated mouse support and treats Xp windows as if they are part of OS/X among other things. So far can't believe it's free.
  • Reply 25 of 45
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,953member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hezekiahb View Post


    When you are all don open the vmware tools inside XP & try running "shrink".



    Think 8GB is bad, my vista volume is hogging up about 17GB, course I have Office installed so that doesn't help.



    Thanks, I think that cleaned up about 1.5GB. I don't have any Office-type suite installed yet, assuming I do install one. They're all huge unless you use an old version.
  • Reply 26 of 45
    zunxzunx Posts: 620member
    If you want to control USB devices from Windows from the Mac, the best hands down is Fusion.
  • Reply 27 of 45
    wplj42wplj42 Posts: 439member
    To be fair, there should be a comparison including Virtual Box and Boot Camp.
  • Reply 28 of 45
    rbonnerrbonner Posts: 635member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by trip1ex View Post


    I installed Virtual Box and installed XP in a virtual machine since I last posted 90 minutes ago. Also ran the guest additions iso (in the package contents) which gives you integrated mouse support and treats Xp windows as if they are part of OS/X among other things. So far can't believe it's free.



    I really liked it as well until I tried to drag a file from my desktop to the VM, there was no support.
  • Reply 29 of 45
    rbonnerrbonner Posts: 635member
    I have tried both Parallels and VMWare, several times. Even beta tested the latest VMWare release.



    I thought that Parallels was a bit more user friendly, especially being able to set the MAC address in the network setting. Very nice touch.



    At the end of the day, it came down to a situation where my parallels BSOD'd on me, and there was not really a reason why, or a great way back. VMWare has never failed me stability wise.



    I would rather be able to use my windows session tomorrow than run it a bit faster today.
  • Reply 30 of 45
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    I've been a user of Parallels for over two years now and was reasonably happy with the performance and reliability , but version 4 is terrible. There are serious problems synchronizing Palm's, and every once in a while it will go crazy,using 70 - 100% on the CPU with nothing really going on. Although version 4 looks prettier and has a lot of promise, right now I'm sorry I upgraded from version 3.
  • Reply 31 of 45
    graxspoograxspoo Posts: 162member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ltcommander.data View Post


    But given that it's $0, it's still a great alternative for light Windows work or as an introduction to virtualization.



    Yes. I've been very disappointed with Parallels upgrade pricing. Recently I found out I would have to upgrade to Parallels 4 in order to run Kubuntu. Since my virtualization needs are mostly "for fun" I was quite pleased to find VirtualBox. It runs Kubuntu great. Sayonara Parallels.



    BTW Kubuntu is also free! VirtualBox + Linux: Its like a whole new (free) OS for your Mac.



    PS: VirtualBox has been updated since the Ars Technica article was written. I didn't run into any VirtualBox related bugs.
  • Reply 32 of 45
    trip1extrip1ex Posts: 109member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by rbonner View Post


    I really liked it as well until I tried to drag a file from my desktop to the VM, there was no support.



    There is support to share files.



    IN the VM you can specify a folder or folders located on the host as shared folder(s.) I whipped up one to test it out and was able to view the same files on both the host and guest.
  • Reply 33 of 45
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    I just thought I might add, that people that only need to use one or 2 small programs that aren't available for a Mac, or there isn't equivalent Mac software, might try CrossOver from CodeWeavers or Darwine.



    I have one program that I need to use daily, APFill Ink Coverage Meter (anybody with a heads-up where I might find a similar Mac app...?). I installed it in a "bottle" within CrossOver, and it works like a charm! I (personally) don't need Windoze for anything else, but you can even install all of the MS Office stuff, including Internet Explorer 6 if you need to test websites.



    Just a tip.



    PS: I thought I might add that, what surprised me the most about this particular program running in a "bottle", is that it needs to have Ghostscript also installed in the bottle for reading PDFs, and that on Windoze, it only runs from the Taskbar. In the bottle on CrossOver, it's even more usable because it runs stand-alone as a normal app.



    PSS: About APFill. It's used to measure ink coverage across a page, with up to 8 colors in a separation PDF, or RGB. I need this to calculate printing costs in the packaging industry, but it can be used for pro photo/print houses as well for Gyclee printing for more accurate pricing.
  • Reply 34 of 45
    atomacatomac Posts: 13member
    We are using VMWare trial now. It feels much snappier than Parallels 4.0. I regret that we bought 2 licenses. Maybe Parallels doesn't use much RAM, but if you use Visual Studio and SQL Server on XP, it is impossible that it can use only 300MB RAM. It swaps out the memory after working on OS X for a while. If I like to return to Windows, it is so damn slow.



    Also Video Performance feels much better on VMWare. Maybe Parallels runs faster with a stopwatch. But the way I use it, it sometimes feels like VirtualPC on a PPC603 with Windows 95.
  • Reply 35 of 45
    knightlieknightlie Posts: 282member
    I'd rather take the performance hit than use Parallels - in fact I'd rather use Bootcamp or a real PC. I found it unreliable and unstable, and the last time I needed it it wouldn't even load the VM. VMWare has performed flawlessly since I started using it; it has a free tool to convert other VMs too.



    Parallels support is also dire, they just ignore bug reports and support questions on their own forum.
  • Reply 36 of 45
    jeordyjeordy Posts: 2member
    I registered just to reply on this topic;



    We are obligated to use Windows in our network, because of some old Windows programs which are not available for Mac. And we have tried Parallels and VMware to see which fits best.



    And the results are always the oposite of what the benmarktesters are saying.



    VMware works best with network applications, aspecially with database connections like SQL, Filemaker, etc. The connection is stable, reliable and above all; Fast!!! Just a simple query to retreive customer information is 5 times faster with VMware, then it is with Parallels.



    Maybe the local processes of Windows are faster with Parallels, but VMware blows Parallels away in networking performance. And thus VMware is by miles, with this knowledge, the best choice when using Windows Server software.



    So, for consumers Parallels maybe the best option, but for business it's not an option.
  • Reply 37 of 45
    I was totally unable to install FreeBSD on Parallels because midway through the install the read-write would simple stop with no error or message of any kind. This kind of problem suggests to me that VMWare is a much more robust and stable system.
  • Reply 38 of 45
    I also use Parallels and Fusion. I agree with most posters here, Parallels has tons of stability problems. In one situation, the network all of a sudden stopped working for no reason. I went thru all the troubleshooting recommendations on Parallels' website and still no good. After messing with it for well over a week, I had to reinstall the VM. Extremely annoying!



    Also on VPN, Parallels does not work at all with the VPN client that I have. It just won't connect to the corporate network. Where as with Fusion, I was able to use the VPN client as if I was using a regular PC.
  • Reply 39 of 45
    be careful with parallel, I upgraded to parallel 4.0, it is full of crap. it is faster than older version, but it has memory leaking issue, the inactive memory size keep rising from time to time, even if you do not do anything (you could just watch that in Activity Monitor) just for fun. after 2~3 days, the free memory was gone, the whole system is sloooooooow and you have to reboot the mac. also another problem when install Norton's virus s/w, once a while you typed some characters, parallel s/w started to close some windows or pop up some new windows. complained to parallel support, they do not have any clue, I guess all their support are coming from India and following their instruction just waste your time. I stop listening to them and only thing I could do is to reboot my mac book pro once a while.



    will get rid of parallel eventually.
  • Reply 40 of 45
    toyintoyin Posts: 58member
    Sorry but I disagree with most of the posters here. I went back to Parallels today after using Fusion exclusively for over a month. It's faster then Fusion especially after a few tweaks (decreased RAM, changed to one processor). Copy and Paste between OSX and XP and keyboard shortcuts which is not always consistent in Fusion works better in Parallels. Parallels also uses less processor power idle then Firefox (which is a lot less then Fusion).



    I use Windows at work for computer charting, which is done through IE. I also use it to connect to my office network and to a couple of hospital VPNs. Both Fusion and Parallels work flawlessly.



    I'll go back and forth between the two like I've been doing from day one, but for the next few weeks I'll stick with Parallels.
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