Parallels Desktop vs. VMware Fusion

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Parallels Desktop
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Parallels Desktop is a virtual user session solution built to run Windows on Macintosh computers without rebooting. It is designed for OS X Yosemite with one-click tuning.
$49.99
per license
VMware Fusion
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Vmware Fusion is a virtual user session software built to run Windows applications on Macintosh to run any Windows applications.N/A
Pricing
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Editions & Modules
Parallels Desktop 16
$49.99
per license
Parallels Desktop Pro Edition
$49.99
per license/per year
Parallels Desktop
$79.99
per license
Parallels Desktop Pro Edition
$99
per license/per year
Parallels Desktop Business Edition
$99.99
per license/per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Considered Both Products
Parallels Desktop
Chose Parallels Desktop
I have used VirtualBox on Windows as a free alternative, as I only used it to access an old scanner without recent drivers. So far, I stick with Parallels, but the OpenGL limitations are said to be resolved better with VMware Fusion. But I currently don't want to migrate to …
Chose Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop ends up filling the sweet spot between free, but basic application (VirtualBox), and fully featured enterprise application (VMware Fusion.). Even at this point, we don't use all of the features of Parallels, but the perceived performance boost over VirtualBox …
Chose Parallels Desktop
VMware Fusion is also a good product, but it tended to be a little more difficult to configure, and the price tag was higher in terms of the volume purchasing that we required.
Chose Parallels Desktop
I'm a longtime user of VMware Fusion and I still use it in some cases. We use it on RedHat Linux computers to run other Linux environments with specific software development environment configurations. I've also used VMware Fusion on a MacBook Pro laptop to run Windows and …
Chose Parallels Desktop
Parallels [Desktop] is more polished and has a friendlier interface than VMware Fusion. While the VMware Fusion licensing model is simpler Parallels [Desktop] innovates faster and optimizes their product more often and with more features that customers want. At their core they …
Chose Parallels Desktop
At the end of the day, it seemed like Parallels Desktop has the fastest product with a feature set that was most important to our users. Additionally, it seemed to hit a mark where it was easy enough for our less tech-savvy users, but powerful enough for our users that really …
Chose Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop is faster when compared to other solutions, assuming that is for Mac computers only, is the fastest option and easiest to run
Chose Parallels Desktop
Main two features that made the balance decission go to the Parallels Desktop were the possibility to pause the Windows partition easily (allowing to consume less resources in Mac and save battery) and the other one is the user interface feature called "Coherence" with allows …
Chose Parallels Desktop
If you can follow a prompt and click a button, you can install Parallels. We chose Parallels because they make it so simple to buy, install, set up, and add licenses. I work with Creatives and getting them to run a Windows environment is a painful task. With Parallels, we can …
VMware Fusion
Chose VMware Fusion
If you only need to run a single Windows VM for a handful of applications and do not need to do testing or run multiple operating systems, Parallels Desktop may be the better choice, especially for less technical end users. Parallels is a bit more user friendly. If you need …
Chose VMware Fusion
As mentioned previously, perpetual licensing was the #1 reason. The interface is also cleaner, simpler, and less bloat. Parallels also seem to run a bit slower. Fusion was also more stable and significantly faster in both raw performance and graphics compared to Virtualbox. …
Chose VMware Fusion
  • GitHub and Bitbucket are both used by our company for code sharing and are much easier to use for collaborative source code versioning. We internally use GitHub and have some clients who use Bitbucket. In some cases, we have software projects that are very hard to configure, …
Chose VMware Fusion
VMWare Fusion is easier to deploy and manage than Parallels and also has a much simpler and less expensive licensing system. For us these are win-win.
Chose VMware Fusion
To be fair, with other products, if pricing was a problem for the organization, I would choose VirtualBox, because it works very well on Mac environment and it has most of the features that VMware Fusion has. However, I personally like the way I can run my Microsoft Windows …
Chose VMware Fusion
As Hyper-V is Windows specific product, and primarily designed for Windows Server, it is difficult to compare Fusion and Hyper-V as they cater to different customer needs.

Comparing Fusion to Parallels is a bit more complicated as they are extremely similar products. Briefly, …
Chose VMware Fusion
VM Fusion is a leader. It has more functionality and capability for workstation virtualization application. Its unity view and resource management of virtual guests is far superior to any other Mac workstation virtualization applications on the market.
Chose VMware Fusion
VMware Fusion works much better for us because of the migration capabilities. We use VMware vSphere and the migration/conversion is seamless. Some of the other virtualization application do not covert or migrate VMs onto other platforms as easily.
Chose VMware Fusion
VMware fusion is very similar to Parallels but is lower priced, so its my preferred solution for running Windows on a macintosh computer. Vmware is also made by a much more well known company with a large support staff in place, so getting help with vmware fusion is always …
Chose VMware Fusion
Fusion seems to run better than Parallels. It also is much more user friendly and intuitive to use.
Chose VMware Fusion
All of this changes from year to year, too. Parallels and VMware both require that you buy an annual license every year to get updates that pack in performance gains and feature improvements. These annual updates are great in theory, but they’re not cheap, and they come every …
Top Pros
Top Cons
TrustRadius Insights
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion are both remote desktop software designed to help users run windows software on computers running the Mac OS operating system.  Both software options are most popular with mid-sized businesses, but VMware fusion is slightly more popular with larger enterprises, perhaps due to its integrations with other VMware software.

Features

Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion both offer essential remote desktop features such as screen capture and viewing, but they also have a few standout features that set them apart from each other. 

Parallels Desktop offers simple installation of multiple operating systems such as Windows and Ubuntu with a single click.  Additionally, Parallels Desktop offers fast boots, with Windows boots generally finishing in under 5 seconds.  Lastly, Parallels Desktop allows for optimized virtual machine resource usage by allowing for virtual machine pauses, and disk optimization.

VMware Fusion provides high performance virtual machines, especially in terms of graphics.  In benchmarking tests, Vmware Fusion performs better graphically than most remote desktop software including Parallels. VMware Fusion also offers support for high performance monitors, including 5k iMacs.

Limitations

Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion can both run Windows Software on Mac devices, but they have some limitations that are important to consider.

Parallels Desktop performs well in CPU tests, but does not perform as well as VMware Fusion when it comes to graphics. Businesses looking for high performance graphics should consider other options.  Compounding this issue, Parallels doesn’t include native support for 5k monitors, so businesses that need highest quality aesthetics may prefer VMware Fusion.

VMware Fusion is more difficult to implement compared to Parallels.  Multiple operating systems can be installed using VMware Fusion, but not with a single click. Additionally, while VMware Fusion performs well graphically, it doesn’t perform as well in CPU tests and takes longer to boot up virtual machines.

Pricing

Parallels offers a single price point for businesses, $99.99 per year for each license. VMware Fusion similarly offers a single rate for businesses, $79.99 per year per license.

Features
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Remote Administration
Comparison of Remote Administration features of Product A and Product B
Parallels Desktop
8.2
26 Ratings
1% below category average
VMware Fusion
-
Ratings
Screen sharing9.09 Ratings00 Ratings
File transfer9.823 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant message7.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Secure remote access with Smart Card authentication6.44 Ratings00 Ratings
Access to sleeping/powered-off computers8.710 Ratings00 Ratings
Over-the-Internet remote session8.99 Ratings00 Ratings
Initiate remote control from mobile7.13 Ratings00 Ratings
Remote management of servers & workstations7.15 Ratings00 Ratings
Remote Active Directory® management8.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized management dashboard8.511 Ratings00 Ratings
Session record8.87 Ratings00 Ratings
Annotations6.56 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring and Alerts8.98 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-platform remote control9.49 Ratings00 Ratings
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User Ratings
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(30 ratings)
9.1
(19 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(3 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(6 ratings)
10.0
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Parallels DesktopVMware Fusion
Likelihood to Recommend
Alludo
I often get asked, why not the "free" stuff (VirtualBox), and/or why not VMWare. VirtualBox, etc. are not as performant for interactive usage. I think they are fine for small applications, perhaps some enterprise app usage, but for developers, it's not good enough. VMWare has become too enterprisey and lacks some of the user-friendly stuff that Parallels focuses on. Ultimately, for developer types running OSes for deep tasks, Parallels is unrivaled.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
Due to its perpetual licensing model, VMware Fusion is a great option for users whose needs do not change as much over time. It is also great for occasional-use scenarios such as testing and preparing code to run on newer platforms. Fusion is not really recommended for running graphics-intense applications as graphics acceleration in Fusion is fairly limited in both performance and API support. It has, however, come a very long way and offers near-native performance for many tasks.
Read full review
Pros
Alludo
  • File Transfer - You can easily transfer files between Parallels virtualized desktops and the host desktop either through Copy and Paste functionality, or Drag and Drop. You can also configure shared folders.
  • Switch Between Virtual and Host Desktop - You can configure swipe gestures on a MacBook Pro to be able to switch between the virtualized and host desktop. You can also launch apps from the OS X Taskbar.
  • Performance - Apps in Parallels run quite smoothly on my 2015 MacBook Pro, as of 2020. Considering they are running on a 5-year-old computer, I give Parallels top marks for performance.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • Allows users to run Windows only applications on their Mac without switching devices.
  • Fusion is excellent for Windows image creation, and works exceptionally well on the Mac environment.
  • Assists a Mac user to virtualize Windows apps.
  • Excellent for installing Linux distros for penetration testing.
Read full review
Cons
Alludo
  • The ability to do snapshots, backups, and other types of branching for VMs is a little confusing and takes a bit to get used to
  • The Parallels tools frequently pop up windows advertising functionality, while this is helpful at times it can also happen when you are doing a presentation or typing in a password.
  • Careful using the VMs on a shared cloud drive such as Dropbox or OneDrive, there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of files which are updated when running a VM and this can clog up your Dropbox or OneDrive sync for minutes to hours even on a 2gb connection.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • With OSX - 10.14.1 and the latest version of Fusion - 11.0.2 the user interface has taken a step back IMHO.
  • I would like to see price decrease.
  • Better remote host connection capabilities - remote server connections are available but connections are spotty.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Alludo
Users are familiar with the application which will keep us going for a little while. However since we are seeing a decline for a need for the software, I wouldn't be surprised to find that this answer changes dramatically in the near future. We would probably keep it to some extent, but we would probably reduce our licensing count.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
For Apple workstations VMware Fusion is the virtualization software to use. No other application (free or paid) can do what Fusion can. The features and constant updates make Fusion an application that cant be beat.
Read full review
Usability
Alludo
It has a good integration, including the connection of peripherals. Taking files back and forth works well and I can attach my Home drive as a network drive in Windows. There is even integration with iCloud and other macOS services. There are also a few different display modes which are useful and fleixible (coherence, windowed, full-screen with multiple screens)
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
Sometimes the best surprise is no surprise and Fusion is just that. It's reliable and generally just works as expected every time (the only exception was running a boot camp install directly but that use-case scenario opens a can of worms due to how product activation works) The interface and settings are clean and simple and there is no hide and seek games to play.
Read full review
Support Rating
Alludo
So, this rating is a little skewed toward older behavior from Parallels, as I haven't had to contact them recently. However, in an older version of Parallels, an "update" included pop-ups urging users to upgrade to the latest version, implying that their current version wouldn't work for the latest MacOS. I found it very frustrating to be getting ads for a new version of the software in a version I had already paid for. I contacted support about this and got a generic, uncaring response. It was pretty disappointing.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
I have never contacted VMware, but there is a lot of support online on message boards, forums, StackOverflow, YouTube tutorial videos, and the like. VMware has been around nine years longer than its leading competitor, VirtualBox, although both seem to have a good presence of online user communities who can help solve issues that come up.
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Alludo
The only advice I can provide is think about who is using the product and build the image based on the true needs of the user.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
This is a workstation application and no install insights are needed.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Alludo
Main two features that made the balance decission go to the Parallels Desktop were the possibility to pause the Windows partition easily (allowing to consume less resources in Mac and save battery) and the other one is the user interface feature called "Coherence" with allows you to show the Windows application windows as if they were native to the macOS, allowing for a better user experience.
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
I've heard of other/competitive software but frankly once I tried VMware, I never looked back. There is absolutely nothing that I need that this product does not deliver. It's fast, effective and seems to be extremely durable and reliable. My only concern (and minor) might have to do with memory resources, but frankly it has not been an issue yet.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Alludo
  • Avoid extra costs: majority of users have a Mac, so if they needed to dod something that is Windows related, it will require to users have an extra computer to do that tasks, and this have a lot of costs
  • Developers have more concerns how websites behaves on Windows only browsers, which increased the satisfaction of users
Read full review
VMware by Broadcom
  • Users using a VM often don't need something as "fancy" as VMware Fusion, and instead can use a free option like Virtual Box, so we waste money on using an extra amount of VMware Fusion licenses.
  • Developers using and IT admins using VMware Fusion for testing saves us time and money. Simply, we know mistakes would take time and money to fix, but VMware is powerful, allows for proper and fast testing.
Read full review
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