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. You can also run macOS in a VM using VirtualBox, although this will only work if your host operating system is also on a Mac. This is mainly due to the fact that Apple does not allow their operating system to function on non-Apple hardware.
If you want to run Windows on your Mac there are two ways to do it. One is to partition your main drive using the built-in Bootcamp Assistant and then install Windows on the partition that doesn’t house macOS. You can then boot into whichever operating system you choose. While that method means running Windows natively and so is optimal in terms of performance, it means you have to reboot every time you want to move between operating systems and you can’t, for example, copy and paste between macOS and Windows. If you want to run Windows and macOS side by side, you’ll need to create a Windows virtual machine for Mac.
What is a virtual machine? A virtual machine (VM) is a computer that’s created in software and looks and feels just like a real PC. But it runs inside a Mac application. The whole virtual machine, with the operating system and all its applications, is stored inside one big file on your Mac. That means you can have multiple virtual machines on the same Mac. Once you launch it and ‘boot’ the virtual PC, Windows VM on Mac behaves like any other Windows machine, except that it’s running inside a window on your Mac.
If you have two screens connected to your Mac, you can have macOS on one and Windows on the other. Or you can use Mission Control to swipe between them. A virtual machine can share accessories like printers and external storage with your Mac, and you can copy and paste between the two operating systems. You can even set up the virtual machine to use Mac keyboard shortcuts instead of their Windows equivalents. Can I run a virtual machine on my Mac?
As long as your Mac has an Intel processor (and it will have unless it’s more than 12 years old), in theory it can run a virtual machine. However, running a virtual machine alongside macOS needs lots of memory (at least 8GB in total, and more if you want to run more than one virtual machine) and at least two processor cores. You’ll also need at least 16-20GB of hard drive space, and that’s before you start installing applications and saving files.
Most modern Macs should run any of the virtual machine applications described here without a problem. The other thing you’ll need is a copy of Windows.
Virtual machine applications don’t come with Windows installers, so you’ll need to supply your own, along with a licence key. Best virtual machine software for Mac There are three contenders here: Parallels Desktop, VMWare Fusion, and VirtualBox. We’ll discuss Virtual Box in the next section. Parallels Desktop 13 The latest version of Parallels Desktop has support for features in the latest Macs, like the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. It also allows you to make the Windows desktop ‘invisible’ when you’re running apps, so it looks like you’re just running Windows apps in macOS. Or, if you prefer, you can shrink Windows desktop down to a thumbnail preview, so it doesn’t get in the way but you can keep an eye on what it’s doing. Of course, virtual machines aren’t just about running Windows on your Mac.
Parallels Desktop allows you to install Linux, or a different version of macOS, say a beta of the next version if you don’t want to install it on your Mac. If you’ve previously installed Windows on a Boot Camp partition, you can use that partition as a virtual machine, allowing you to boot into it from within Parallels without re-booting your Mac. Touch Bar support includes functions in Microsoft Office apps, as well as Windows Task Bar. When it comes to performance, Parallels Desktop is about as good as it gets for virtual machines. That means you can run most applications just fine, but demanding 3D graphics-intensive games, and other apps that place lots of demands on the CPU and GPU are still a bit of a struggle.
If you want to run those in Windows, you’re still better off using Boot Camp. VMWare Fusion The other main contender when it comes to running a virtual machine on your Mac is VMWare Fusion.
It comes in two versions, Fusion 10, which costs about the same as Parallels Desktop, and Fusion 10 Pro, which is more expensive but adds feature aimed at enterprise customers, such as support for managing virtual servers. In terms of features, there’s little to choose between Parallels Desktop and Fusion. Like its rival, Fusion allows you to choose between running Windows inside a window on your Mac (or full-screen if you prefer) and in what it calls Unity mode, where the operating system disappears and Windows apps look like they’re running natively on the Mac. That means you can run Windows and Mac apps alongside each other and switch between them seamlessly. You can also copy and paste between Mac and Windows, share peripherals, and map Mac keyboard shortcuts in Windows. Support for OpenGL and DX10, as well as Apple’s Metal technology means that playing resource-hungry games is theoretically possible. But, as with Parallels, performance in the latest games lags behind Boot Camp and may prove frustrating.
The latest version of Fusion adds support for the MacBook Pro’s Touch Bar. Choosing between Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion may be as much a matter of a preference for one or the other’s user interface.
They have very similar features, and cost almost the same. Fortunately, both offer free trials — Parallels for 14 days and Fusion for 30 days — so you can download each one and try them out before making a decision on which to buy. Best free virtual machine software for Mac If you want to run a virtual machine on your Mac but can’t stretch to the $70 for Parallels or Fusion, there is a third option — VirtualBox. Owned by Oracle and made available as open-source software for personal or educational use, VirtualBox won’t cost you a penny if you fall into either of those two categories. That’s the good news. The bad news is that VirtualBox, because it’s open source and free lacks all of the polish of Parallels Desktop and VMWare Fusion. While it does the basics competently, it’s much less user friendly and much less easy to use than the other two.
And while there is help available online from other users, there’s no official support if you run into problems. And remember, while VirtualBox itself is free, you’ll still need to supply your own copy of Windows. Alternatively, you could use VirtualBox to run Linux on your Mac, instead of Windows. Alternatives to a virtual machine As we mentioned earlier, the alternative to running a virtual machine on your Mac is to partition your main drive using the built-in Boot Camp Assistant (it’s in the Utilities folder).
You can then install Windows or Linux, or another version on macOS, on the other partition. Boot Camp Assistant is very easy to use and once you’ve set it up, booting into, say, Windows, is just like using it natively on a PC. That means, of course, that you won’t be able to copy and paste between Mac and Windows, and you won’t be able to use external storage that’s formatted in APFS or Mac OS Extended, but Windows will run faster than it does on a virtual machine.
If you plan to use Boot Camp Assistant to partition your main drive, remember to back it up first. Partitioning a drive is not quite major surgery, but it definitely carries the risk of losing data. How to make space for a virtual machine on your Mac Depending on how many applications you plan to install on your virtual machine and what you plan to use it for, you may need tens of gigabytes of free space on your Mac. If space is tight, don’t worry, there’s plenty you can do to make room.
As a first step, we recommend installing. It scans your Mac and looks for files that can be safely deleted. These include “junk” system files like cache files and other temporary files that are still hanging around, as well as language support files, and data in Photos and iTunes you may not need. Once it’s scanned your Mac and found all those files, you can delete them all with a click, or review the results of the scan and decide for yourself what you want to trash. CleanMyMac can also uninstall files completely, getting rid of all the files that are left if you just drag and app to the Trash, and highlight large and old files that you haven’t opened for a while.
Best of all, you can and give it a try. You’ll be surprised about how much space you can free up.
Virtual machines are the most convenient way of running a second operating system on your Mac. The ones we have highlighted here are the best VMs for Mac, so download one and give it a go.
Advertisement If you’ve never used one before, virtual machines can be overwhelming. Not that they’re difficult to use, but they’re unlike any other kind of app and that unfamiliarity is what scares most off. In practice, Virtual machines allow you to run other operating systems on your current computer. Here's what you should know about them.
And extremely useful. The toughest hurdle to getting started is deciding which virtual machine software to use. Several options exist, but if you don’t want to pay a cent, then only two are worth discussing: VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player. In this post, we’ll compare both of them and help you decide which one you should use. For this comparison, we’ll be looking at VirtualBox 5.1.26. Price While VirtualBox and VMware are both free, they aren’t equally free.
The core engine that drives VirtualBox is licensed under GPLv2 and Many assume 'open source' and 'free software' mean the same thing but that's not true. It's in your best interest to know what the differences are., but the “extension pack” is under Oracle’s proprietary license and is only free for personal use, educational use, or evaluation purposes.
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VMware Workstation Player is the free version of, meant strictly for students, non-profit organizations, and personal or home use. The catch is that you have to sign up for the occasional VMware promotional email. Commercial use requires the Pro version. (VMWare also offers the VMWare Fusion version 11 is here. Here's why it's a great update for anyone who needs to run a virtual machine on their Mac.). For casual home users who just want to The term 'virtual' has been co-opted in so many ways. Virtual reality.
Virtual schools. But Virtualization in the context of PCs can be confusing. We're here to clear it up. Or, they’re both free so you have nothing to worry about.
Ease of Use To compare, I installed Elementary OS 0.4.1 in both virtual machines, then ran both of them (not at the same time) and used them as I would any normal machine. VirtualBox has a wizard that walks you through the creation of a new virtual machine. It makes recommendations for how much RAM and hard drive space to set aside based on your system’s hardware. Launching a virtual machine is as easy as clicking Start, and again it walks you along every step of the way. I was up and running within minutes. Learn more in.
VMware Workstation Player’s setup wizard is even easier, allowing you to tweak aspects that can only be done in VirtualBox after the fact (e.g. How many CPU cores to dedicate). Unlike VirtualBox, VMware doesn’t recommend values so first timers may feel unsure how to proceed.
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VMware’s interface is simpler and less intimidating. Learn more in We’ve lavished attention on VirtualBox here at MakeUseOf, and for good reason. However, VirtualBox isn’t your only option for creating and using free virtual machines. VMware Player, VMware’s free product, is every bit as good. Performance VirtualBox is among the slowest virtual machine solutions currently available. It was never very fast to begin with, but ever since it was acquired by Oracle in 2010, performance has slowly but surely degraded. To be fair, if you’re going to run a virtual machine, you should be doing it on a powerful computer because You've probably heard of emulation before, but do you know what emulation actually means or how it works?
And if your computer is powerful enough, you won’t notice the relative slowness of VirtualBox. It’s not terrible — it just isn’t as fast as it could be., on the other hand, has excellent performance. When running the same guest operating system in both virtual machines with the same amount of resources allocated, I find that VMware is without question faster and more responsive. If you have to run virtualization on a mediocre system, or if you plan on spending a lot of time in a virtual machine every day, then VMware is clearly superior. But if your system is top-of-the-line, you can go with either one. Compatibility and Reliability One of the more interesting uses for a virtual machine is the ability to Virtualization allows one operating system (OS) to run on another OS. We'll show you how to create a virtual machine clone of your system and how to use it.
And virtualize it on another computer. Programmers, for example, can clone their Linux development environment, virtualize it on a Windows computer, and keep working. In order to do that, the virtual machines need to be compatible with both systems.
This is one area where VirtualBox surpasses VMware. You can set up a virtual machine, save a snapshot, move the virtual data as is, and immediately launch it on another computer as is. It will be exactly as you expect. Snapshots and clones aren’t available in VMware’s free version. However, when it comes to reliability, things flip around. When using VirtualBox, you’re likely to run into bugs and glitches. I’ve used VirtualBox every so often throughout the years, on several different computers, and it has never been a 100 percent smooth ride.
On the other hand, VMware’s stability and dependability are its main selling points. Other Points of Interest If you’ve gotten this far and still aren’t leaning in one way or the other, then the deciding factor comes down to which software’s features and quirks you prefer. Here are some notable points that may push you off the fence in either direction. VirtualBox. Snapshots When you take a snapshot, you save the entire state of the virtual machine at that moment. Think of it like a save state in a video game: at any time later, you can “load” the snapshot and return to how it was when you took it.
Extension pack Incorporates even more features, like support for USB 2.0 and 3.0 devices, encryption of virtual disks, remote desktop protocol, and more. Encrypted virtual machines In other words, password-protected virtual machines that can’t be powered on unless you have the right credentials. You can also enable restrictions that prevent users from editing a virtual machine’s configuration. Features in Both.
Shared folders Though it requires a bit of setup, this feature lets you mount a folder in the host as a network share in the guest, allowing the two to share data between them. Shared data transfer In addition to shared folders, you can drag and drop files between host and guest. You can also copy to clipboard in one, then paste in the other. (VirtualBox) and Unity mode (VMware) Pull windows out of the guest and onto the host, allowing you to seamlessly interact with both operating systems at the same time. In VMware, such windows even appear in the host’s taskbar.
VirtualBox vs. VMware: The Winner Is You didn’t really think one would be strictly better than the other, did you? They’ve both been around for quite a while, and there’s a reason why both still exist: they’re both excellent. However, a quick summary of which one you might prefer:. VirtualBox if the price is your main concern (because you get full access to all features), if you intend to move virtual machines between hosts (because it has the best platform compatibility), or if you’re a moral crusader who only supports The open software movement is still going strong. When companies released source code for once-proprietary projects, they usually benefited from it.
Here are eight notable examples you'll probably recognize. VMware if stability is your main concern (because VMware rarely crashes and doesn’t have many bugs), if you’re on an older machine where every bit of performance optimization matters, or if you’re willing to. What do you use virtual machines for? Do you prefer VirtualBox or VMware? If you know of any alternatives that are better than both, please let us know.
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