Review: Parallels and VMware Mac Solutions

Virtualization on Intel-based Mac OS X machines has been a hot topic for quite a while. Parallels hit the ground running when it first introduced us to their Desktop for Mac product, and they haven’t slowed down or looked back since. Microsoft bowed out quietly, saying they wouldn’t update their Virtual PC for Mac product to work with the latest Intel Mac OS. And with all of that, there was definitely a missing player in the Mac virtualization market for a while, and people sat quietly waiting for some type of response from virtualization giant VMware. That message came in August of 2006 when VMware officially announced that it would bring to market its own Mac OS X virtualization solution, code-named Fusion.

So, how do these two solutions compare? – VMware and Parallels

ComputerWorld recently published a comparison review between VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac titled Mac virtualization: VMware and Parallels side by side.

In the review, Ryan Faas looks at the two products by comparing the ease of installation and setup, the ease of use and operation, and then follows it up with comparing advanced configuration and device access.

Ryan’s overall impressions were:

Both Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion are good products. However, it is clear that Fusion still needs some work in terms of its performance and to fully implement its feature set. It also isn’t quite as stable and reliable as Parallels.

All of that is to be expected from a product currently in beta testing, but it does mean that Parallels remains the better option for the time being despite the fact that Fusion offers some features that the commercial release of Parallels doesn’t, such as drag and drop, control over how many processor cores virtual machines can access and full USB 2.0 support.

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As a result, it seems that for the foreseeable future, VMware will remain a generation behind Parallels.

The review starts off by discussing performance and benchmarking within both platforms. Unfortunately, VMware’s EULA prohibits reviews and publications around such findings without permission. Otherwise, doing a scientific benchmarking approach between both platforms would prove quite valuable in a head-to-head product assessment. The other problem with doing so right now is that VMware’s Fusion is still in beta, and as such, the product is still running in debug mode. So any benchmarking or performance data found would be, in my opinion, null and void anyway until VMware either removes the forced debug option or until they come out with a release version.

While reading the review, I was lead to ask myself another question: Which versions/builds were being compared? I could only assume that the Parallels version being used was the most current GA version and not one of the many release candidates that Parallels has made available since drag and drop, USB 2.0 and iSight have been added.

I also had to question the belief that VMware would remain a generation behind Parallels. I think that’s a huge leap to take by simply comparing a beta and released platform against one another.

I realize that Parallels has a “head start” in the Mac community and also has a higher versioned product out there right now. However, VMware is offering Virtual SMP, 64-bit support and has a billion dollar company behind its product. It’s even showcasing 3D graphics inside of a virtual machine! And even though this product is a beta release right now, I believe the product is leveraging code that has been running in the wild for many years now – VMware Workstation.

I think both products are currently offering a lot of really great features. And as the two companies continue to innovate and enhance their platforms, the Mac consumer is going to be the overall winner.

Read the comparison review, here, and let me know your thoughts on the subject.