VirtualBox vs. Parallels

Of what I experienced, I can just agree with your comment. Parallels' merchants' are money greedy, although the newest software is very good.

I have been using VIRTUAL BOX since the start, it has become more user friendly, but the CD Additions is annoying. That said it works extremely well once setup and seems to be more streamline than Parallels or VMware which take a toll on the processor and memory. Several operating systems can be installed at once and SNAPSHOTS of the operating system can be made in case of problems.

It has been my preferred choice and I ran all 3. Setting up is easy until you want to add swappable files and transfer files from your Mac whilst using the Win System. If you set up the INSTALL CD ADDONS then it is easy.

Considerably slower, fewer options, less integration with OS X, and OK for anything quick and simple. Parallels is definitely the king of Windows emulation software for the Mac.

There is also VMWare Fusion. I own Fusion and also run VirtualBox. I picked Fusion over Desktop primarily because of how Fusion does with Linux VMs. I'm not as certain as Kappy seems to be about the commercial hypervisors over VirtualBox. One thing is VirtualBox is free so you can easily compare them without hurting your wallet.

It really depends on your application. Oracle has many commercial users of VirtualBox that pay a minimum of $5000/yr for phone support. So it can't be all that bad.

Try them.

VirtualBox is free so there's no harm in trying it. I've personally been using VirtualBox for years under Windows and Linux hosts but haven't used it on OS X.

I've used VirtualBox, but not with El Capitan and I preferred it over Fusion for user interface, setup, and speed.. I have never used Parallels. And it's free. Try it for yourself.

FWIW, I run VirtualBox on El Capitan and it works well. However, its support of OSX guests is next to nil, many things don't work, no guest additions etc. Which is the other reason I have Fusion.

Parallels Desktop is a money sink. At every free OS X upgrade they charge to keep up and their upgrade price is highway robbery.

I would try Virtualbox and see if you can avoid the expense.

Regardless of the virtual machine, you should understand what the accumulative memory requirements are for your Windows applications, the version of Windows that you are going to install, and the virtual machine itself. The mid-2012 13" MBP came with 4GB of memory (Core i5), or 8GB with the Core i7 as standard. The machine is expandable to 16 GB via third-party solutions. A 4GB machine will struggle to run OS X and the virtual machine (with unknown application memory demand). It is doable, but slower.

I have used VirtualBox since 2009, and continuosly on a 2011 Mac mini with 8GB and third-party SSD up through VirtualBox 5. I don't have a discrete graphics card in the mini. During this time on the mini, it was Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, with MS Office, or LibreOffice. It remained a solid performer even with Windows at full-screen. No complaints.

I'm using Virtualbox for Linux as a guest OS, but the setup of the Guest Additions for Linux is awfully troublesome. When the guest is updated (could be daily with Ubuntu for example), it's very often the GA are damaged and require to be reinstalled. That process is unfortunately a pity for Linux, very irregular and unstable. Need to deinstall some components and reinstall them manually, with guest reboot in between.... and uncertain results, sometime it works, sometimes it just does not !

Now, I fear any updates of any kind (VirtualBox itself, the guest OS, the GA, macOS) since I know I may need hours and hours to get it working back (get the GA operational)...

Really thinking of switching to something else... unless VB improves this point !

Kappy wrote:

Considerably slower, fewer options, less integration with OS X, and OK for anything quick and simple. Parallels is definitely the king of Windows emulation software for the Mac.

No slower at all, fewer options, Parallels is the definitely the king of useless spending habits.

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS as a guest within VirtualBox 5.1.8 (current guest additions + matching extension package) on El Capitan 10.11.6. Previous Linux versions would automatically mount the guest additions, and this caused an already mounted exception when attempting to insert Guest Additions from the VirtualBox Device menu. One simply unmounted the Guest Addition in the File viewer, revisited the VirtualBox Device menu, and the installation would proceed normally. A one-minute fix.

This appears to be resolved now, as Ubuntu no longer auto-mounts the guest additions, and one can simply select Insert Guest Additions CD Image... from the VirtualBox Device menu. Installation proceeds normally.

Mmm, this is out of topic here, but ... where is this famous "device menu" in Virtual box ?? When VB is started I have no such menu. Is it for VB itself or for the virtual machine settings ? I would be happy to enjoy simple GA installation....

You need to have a guest running.

I prefer Virtualbox to Parallels.