Parallels Desktop For Mac Vs. VMware

neilticktin writes "MacTech performed an exhaustive set of benchmarks comparing Parallels Desktop 4 to VMWare Fusion 2 to run Windows on a Mac. To tackle this problem, MacTech undertook a huge benchmarking project starting in December — over 2500 tests by stopwatch. The goal was to see how the recent versions of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop performed on different levels of Mac hardware, using XP, Vista, 64-bit, multi-procs, games, etc. ... As usual, results vary by what's important to you."

Comments

Re:Citrix?

[mevets]

They are both tiny, and only adequate for virtual applications.

Desktop Comparison

[TheNinjaroach]

This is a desktop comparison, VMware ESXi is of the server variety and I assume by the name Citrix XenServer is as well.

Apparently the final benchmark is still underway

[jeffmeden]

Slashdotted already? Bummer. I have a feeling I know what the conclusion page says... "Do NOT host a web server with IIS on a Macbook running Windows in VMware Fusion"

Re:Citrix?

[Lucid 3ntr0py]

ESXi is not for 90% of home users. It is built for large scale hosting where VMfusion and Parallels are often used for single client instances.

Slashdotted after 3 comments

[guruevi]

Well, apparently they shouldn't run their server in virtualization software.

Either way, I like Parallels better because it's so much better integrated (albeit more expensive) and easier to use. It also has better support for DirectX and OpenGL than VMWare which is something I needed (OpenGL).

Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments

[AKAImBatman]

Personally, I prefer VirtualBox. It has all the features you expect of a professional VM (rootless desktop, 3D acceleration, drive passthrough, etc.) but is available for the low-low price of $0.

The situation looks a bit different if you're going to use it for business purposes, but for home use there is no better option than VirtualBox.

Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments

[AKAImBatman]

Does VirtualBox allow you to run your BootCamp partition in a virtual machine? Last time I check it didn't.

As far as I know, this has not changed. However, it is possible to extract the Bootcamp partition into a VDMK which VirtualBox can read. I've never done it before, so try it at your own risk.

I must the admit that the number of times I actually boot into windows has diminished drastically

What's this "windows" you speak of? I use VirtualBox for alternative operating systems! :-P

Actually, I did setup one Windows 7 VM so my wife could use an educational CD she needs. Other than that, I haven't found a lot of reason to use Windows on my Mac. I imagine I would have a few more if I didn't have an older Windows XP desktop hanging around, but even that tends to run cross-platform software. (Even Microsoft Office has been successfully replaced with OpenOffice!)

All told, the age of Windows lock-in is fading rapidly. Just about all native software these days either has a Mac version or a good Mac alternative available. Interestingly, FireFox shows markedly better graphics performance on the Mac over the PC. I haven't figured that one out yet. :-/

Most importantly, it depends on which Windows

[iamacat]

Both products fail miserably at running anything older than XP. VMWare still wins here, since at least it manages to install and run 98SE successfully, while Parallels install suffers from endless crashes. But even a trivial DX game like "Lose your marbles" results in a blank screen, while it works perfectly fine in VPC for Mac on 5 year old hardware. There are many older applications and games that do not run on XP. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?

This violates VMware's EULA

[Anonymous Coward]

VMware states that you can not post benchmarks. This is why there are no benchmarks out there comparing it.

Prepare to have your page deactivated.

Re:This violates VMware's EULA

[Anonymous Coward]

From Fusion EULA:

You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review.

Re:This violates VMware's EULA

[ganhawk]

Wrong! VMware only wants to review the methodology and approve it. You do not have to get the results approved.

From register.vmware.com/content/eula.html

"you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review."

Sun virtualbox

[MacColossus]

I have tested all three of these products. I like Sun Virtualbox not just for price (free) but for performance.

Re:Sun virtualbox

[QAChaos]

i also have always liked virtual box - i was surprised at a mac store one time - a customer asked if vmware or parallels was better and the sales person actually suggested that they try virtual box.

Re:free?

[0100010001010011]

I would have liked to see Sun's VirtualBoxthrown into the mix. I use Fusion and "love" it (as much as one can love having to use Windows), but a free alternative would be nice.

That being said, I also use Crossover (WINE) for quite a few things (IE6, RegexBuddy) so I don't have to launch a full VM image.

The article is loading (slowly) through Coral cache

Re:Always funny to me...

[MacColossus]

When I am forced to run Windows because are DBA isn't willing to use something cross platform for trouble ticket system it sucks. I get to devote large portions of drive space for MS Access. Web based (postgre or mysql anyone) or Filemaker Pro would be nice. When mac users have to run Windows, it is usually do to the fanboyish attitude of some Windows user.

slashdotted but anyone buying/using parallels 4

[gearloos]

I couldn't read the article(/.'d) but I know from personal experience (and reading countless others testimony) that Parallels 4 is a humongous heap of manure. I do own Parallels 3 and 4 but never looked back after purchasing VMware 2. When Parallels sold me the upgrade to 4.0 I backed up 4 virtual machines I had (thankfully) then proceded to spend the next 4 days trying to get it to run ANY of them. The first attempt at each upgrade to v4, following Parallels explicit insructions, resulted in total destruction of the virtual machine(unrecoverable with no way to downgrade it back to v3 to use again). I sent in about 5 support requests that are still TO THIS DAY unanswered from last November. As stated before,the article is slashdotted but I don't actually care what the results are. Parallels can keep their products (like they did my money). I will never do business with that company again.

Re:free?

[TheRaven64]

I switched from Parallels Desktop to VirtualBox and it has one feature which I really like; the ability to run for over a week without causing a kernel panic. This was something the version of Parallels I paid for couldn't do. Apparently they messed up the IPI handling (doing something that was wrong but relatively harmless on the Core 1, and very bad on the Core 2), but the only way of 'fixing' the problem way to buy the next version of the product. Since I don't like paying for bug fixes, I never found out if the new version actually did fix the problem, but there's no way I'd give the company any money after that.

VirtualBox got off to a slow start. There were some issues for a long while that prevented it from running FreeBSD in guests, but they were fixed with the 2.1.2 release. Now it works very well, and I didn't have to pay anything to go from the old release to the one that actually works (or for the original release, for that matter). The latest version apparently supports 3D on Windows guests, but I don't have a Windows install set up at the moment so I haven't been able to test this.

'Fusion' ne 'ESX'

[joe_n_bloe]

That would be 99.99% of home users. It's hard to conceive of an application for ESX[i] at "home," given Fusion and Workstation. ESX is heavyweight and particular in its hardware requirements, nontrivial to manage (especially with the free license), and just generally not the right thing if you don't have a spare tower server or DC handy, a full license, and someone else to pay your power bill. Although, in those circumstances, it's pretty cool.

(A bunch of the remaining .01% are going to explain why I'm wrong now.)

Disclaimer: I work for VMware. (And I would run ESX at home if there was a reason to.)

Re:Uhhh, it does?

[AKAImBatman]

That's from nearly two years ago. There's now support for hardware accelerated 3D. From section 4.8 of the user manual:

Starting with version 2.1, the VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows contain experimental hardware 3D support.

With this new feature, if an application inside your Windows guest uses 3D features
through the OpenGL programming interfaces, these will not be emulated in software
(which is slow), but instead VirtualBox will attempt to use your host's 3D hardware.
This works for all supported host platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris), provided
that your host operating system can make use of your accelerated 3D hardware in the
first place.

Re:Always funny to me...

[IANAAC]

I can't speak for Mac use, but I've used Linux pretty much full time for the last few years. I am a freelance translator, and have, for the most part, been able to function fine without any Microsoft products. There is one program that is fairly industry-standard though: Trados. It only runs on Windows. There *ARE* viable alternatives, however, agencies insist on assigning/receiving projects in that format.

It sucks that I am sometimes forced to use it, but I lose a sale if I don't.

That's my reasoning for needing a Windows instance, and I bet my situation is not that uncommon.

Re:Stopwatch != accurate

[Chabo]

When you're comparing performance of compressing an 8GB folder with 1000 files, or total time to encode a 2-hour movie, it's perfectly acceptable to use a stopwatch, and have your margin of error be +/- 1 second.

Re:Apparently the final benchmark is still underwa

[Sorthum]

Gee, who would have thought that spreading your article across TEN BLOODY PAGES would increase the load on your servers? Idiots and their ad impressions...

Re:Apparently the final benchmark is still underwa

[neilticktin]

Damn ... you caught us! (Love the IIS comment). Actually, the banner ad system got crushed by SlashDot. Once we took OpenAds out of the picture, all went well. Try it again now. http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.25/25.04/VMBenchmarks/

Re:Games?

[SpazmodeusG]

Yes.
It works really well too. I mean REALLY well.

Basically any game that runs under Wine currently will run under Virtual Boxes 3D hardware implementation (they used a lot of WINEs implementations for the graphics functions).
The performance is about what you'd get running under WINE in Linux natively.

For home use i wouldn't bother with anything other than VitualBox. No other Virtual Machine out there approaches its 3D hardware virtualisation.