Is VMware fusion supported on M1 processor based Mac?

From https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/apple_silicon_debut/:

In June, Apple engineers mentioned a new virtualization layer was being developed to run Linux VMs and Docker on Apple Silicon. No mention was made during Apple's video presentation of how that project is going. VMware filled that void by declaring it is "committed to delivering VMware virtual machines on Apple Silicon," though it declined to say when.

I would assume the answer is probably not yet, but it (or something like it) should happen.

tt2

I just spoke with the licensing team at VMware, and they said it is supported on the ARM machines. My only hesitation is that the confidence level of their answer was about a 3 out of 10. Can anyone confirm if this is true?

Thank you!

From https://www.vmware.com/uk/products/fusion.html:

Ready for macOS Big Sur

Run nearly any operating system on macOS 11 Big Sur without rebooting. Fusion now has added support for operating entirely without Kernel Extensions on Big Sur, making it more secure and ready for the future of macOS, all while continuing to perform on macOS 10.15 Catalina.

tt2

I was just thinking that they say it is supported on Big Sur, with no Intel-only caveat that might be expected if there were an issue using it on M1s. Rosetta 2 seems to be remarkably effective at loading Intel Mac software. I guess I could try installing it on my new M1 Air and see how I get on, but it isn't a tool I'm too familiar with so I may not be able to judge how well it is performing.

tt2

Hi Aaron,

VMware does have some of the enterprise products working on Apple Silicon M1, but Fusion is not there yet - the internal team are working on it - see the blog.

Until they officially advertise Fusion as M1 supported any other Big Sur news are Inte's only ;(

Cheers,

This is still a no but VMware is actively working on a fix/update with no ETA. Have two of three macbooks running fusion 12 but the 3rd one is a has the m1 chip yielding an unsuccessful installation.

Below is a link for the latest announcements along with the most recent post to date:

https://twitter.com/VMwareFusion/status/1326229094648832000

So excited for todays announcements from @Apple

!

While we're not quite ready to announce our timeline, we're happy to say that we are committed to delivering VMware virtual machines on #AppleSilicon!

1:23 PM · Nov 10, 2020·TweetDeck

Parallels works pretty well in the M1 environment - they are kicking VMware's behind in support. Check it out!

Longtime Fusion User - disappointed in general with VMware as a whole, and this is icing on the cake!

I used Parallel several years ago. It was much more slow than VMware. More importantly, Parallel really sucks at hardware virtualization, such as some USB key for specific web login (bank account for example).

VMware is still better than Parallel, IMO.

I've been using the 'beta' version of Parallels on my M1 Air running Windows 10 (Arm), it works very well and I'm impressed with Parallels in general, given I have been a licensed VMware Fusion user for lots of years. I read that the official release of Parallels for M1 was today, but I am far from impressed on there software licensing model... I would like the 'Pro' version, but not happy for a subscription based model... disappointing :(

Currently it is not supported. I had a response on the VMware community from one of the PM working with the new M1 version of Fusion and they were running 5 virtual machines with 4 processors and 8 GB of memory each running simultaneously on a M1 MacBook Air with 16 GB of memory. They were going to post an update as there is a very lively discussion on the forum. Not sure how long it will take them to get it production ready, but those results are impressive. Hopefully they can get everything ready to release soon.

I have used the Parallels virtualization software briefly, and it is somewhat impressive, but VMware Fusion has been much better in the past. Although I am debating on just discontinuing using virtualization as I have noticed that I have no need of using Microsoft Windows.

I recently upgraded Parallels Desktop to the version that "supports M1", and found that I am limited to installing (a handful of) ARM-based operating systems. I can't, for instance, install any previous editions of MacOS.

Parallels keep this pretty well hidden until you actually launch the software and discover none of your previous VMs will launch.

VMWare Fusion's M1 Support may well follow suit.

Neither hypervisor currently performs emulation of the x86 architecture, and this is expected. In using software like Parallels and VMware Fusion, people forget that virtualization is not emulation. Connectix had VirtualPC running on the PowerPC by using emulation. It is strange that people do not realize that virtualization is not emulation and thusly cannot simply run intel-based machines.

Of course with Apple's announcement of putting the M1 in the iPad Pro, it makes you want to have virtualization available on the iPad Pro. I have always seen the iPad as a replacement for a notebook computer, and now the iPad Pro has the full potential.

Yes, I read that. It is the same as what was there before the M1 Macs were released.

Am I missing something relevant that this is telling us?

I would be very interest in the results if you give it a shot. Thanks!

I just tested VM Fusion on a Mac mini M1. Every attempt yields a connection failure.

So my answer would be NO, VM emulation does not work (yet?).