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Parallels Desktop vs VirtualBox

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Parallels Desktop
37
74
+ 1
2
VirtualBox
29.4K
24.1K
+ 1
1.1K
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Parallels Desktop vs VirtualBox: What are the differences?

What is Parallels Desktop? Run Windows on Mac. Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

What is VirtualBox? Run nearly any operating system on a single machine and to freely switch between OS instances running simultaneously. VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Parallels Desktop and VirtualBox can be categorized as "Virtualization Platform" tools.

Some of the features offered by Parallels Desktop are:

  • Seamless
  • Easy Setup
  • Lightning Fast

On the other hand, VirtualBox provides the following key features:

  • Portability
  • No hardware virtualization required
  • Guest Additions: shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization
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Pros of Parallels Desktop
Pros of VirtualBox
  • 1
    Retina support
  • 1
    Works out of the box with zero config
  • 358
    Free
  • 231
    Easy
  • 169
    Default for vagrant
  • 110
    Fast
  • 73
    Starts quickly
  • 45
    Open-source
  • 42
    Running in background
  • 41
    Simple, yet comprehensive
  • 27
    Default for boot2docker
  • 22
    Extensive customization
  • 3
    Free to use
  • 2
    Mouse integration
  • 2
    Easy tool
  • 2
    Cross-platform

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What is Parallels Desktop?

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

What is VirtualBox?

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

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What companies use Parallels Desktop?
What companies use VirtualBox?
See which teams inside your own company are using Parallels Desktop or VirtualBox.
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What tools integrate with Parallels Desktop?
What tools integrate with VirtualBox?

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What are some alternatives to Parallels Desktop and VirtualBox?
VMware Fusion
It gives Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. It is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.
VMware vSphere
vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.
Proxmox VE
It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.
KVM
KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).
Qemu
When used as a machine emulator, it can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance. When used as a virtualizer, it achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. it supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, it can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.
See all alternatives

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