Their conclusion is that Parallels 8 is a bit faster than VMWare Fusion 5 and both are much faster than VirtualBox. VirtualBox doesn't have nearly the 3D support of the others, so depending on what OpenGL stuff you try to run it might not work.
> Hm - is this just for Mac OS X or is this true for the windows version of virtualbox as well?
You mean is Parallels and Fusion more performant than VirtualBox? I'd be willing to bet that the commercial products in this arena are easily faster.
As for me, I have no real need for Windows, I just like to keep the ability to run Windows apps on rare occasion, so I've stopped paying for VMWare Fusion updates and plan to just use VirtualBox since I don't need the speed. It was Steam on the Mac that put an end to my need for really good Windows virtualization.
Parallels Desktop ist more polished than VMware Fusion but more expensive due to a higher number of paid upgrades – those are about the essential differences in my opinion.
ah ok. I was expecting VMWare to be miles ahead since they are the 800 lb virtualization gorilla, but parallels imported my virtualbox windows box more or less seamelessly (save an automated microsoft phone re-registration) and some sales guy got in touch with me 12 hours after I downloaded the trial. Go figure...
In case you haven't seen it, MacObserver did a comparison of Parallels to Fusion to VirtualBox recently (on the Mac):
http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/benchmarking-parallel...
Their conclusion is that Parallels 8 is a bit faster than VMWare Fusion 5 and both are much faster than VirtualBox. VirtualBox doesn't have nearly the 3D support of the others, so depending on what OpenGL stuff you try to run it might not work.
> Hm - is this just for Mac OS X or is this true for the windows version of virtualbox as well?
You mean is Parallels and Fusion more performant than VirtualBox? I'd be willing to bet that the commercial products in this arena are easily faster.
As for me, I have no real need for Windows, I just like to keep the ability to run Windows apps on rare occasion, so I've stopped paying for VMWare Fusion updates and plan to just use VirtualBox since I don't need the speed. It was Steam on the Mac that put an end to my need for really good Windows virtualization.