Parallels Versus VMware Fusion: Why One Over The Other?
I am honestly having a hard time with this one.
Now I know that VMware, which is now part of EMC, has been around for ages. They’ve been doing virtualization software for years. However, their first Mac product, VMware Fusion, is still not released, but is now in Release Candidate status. I’ve used it a little bit and, at least from my point of view, didn’t see anything all that compelling over, say, Parallels Desktop for the Mac. I bought that product, and recently paid the price to upgrade because it was out first and does what I need it to do.
I have only recently started playing with the VMware Fusion product because I am taking a class where a VMware image was provided as part of the courseware. I could have converted the VMware image to something Parallels could have dealt with, but it was easier to just fire up VMware Fusion instead. Other than playing around with this VMware image, I haven’t done much with VMware Fusion.
Can someone who has played with both products in-depth tell me why I might choose one over the other? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
Bookmark with: del.icio.us Digg it Furl iFeedReaders ma.gnolia Maple.nu RawSugar reddit Simpy StumbleUpon
Comment by Aaron Huslage
I think VMWare has proven to be fairly stable. I switched (pre Parallels 3.0) because Vista performance was awful under Parallels and it was decent under VMWare. My client at the time didn’t care…they just wanted things working right.
I have no clue why I like VMWare better, but I do.
Comment by kriegspiel
I believe Fusion lets you allocate both CPUs to a VM, as well as allowing for the install of 64-bit systems. However, it has been pretty unstable for me on a 1.83 C2D MacBook - the related kernel extensions that stay loaded regardless of whether Fusion is running or not have been responsible for many a kernel panic in the last few weeks.
Pingback by VMware Releases Fusion for Mac, Reaches Out To Blogosphere
[...] included. Apparently, they wanted an opportunity to answer a question I raised before: Parallels Versus VMware Fusion: Why One Over The Other? I got to ask my question directly and got an [...]