Best virtual machine software for Mac

Parallels Desktop is updated every year to coincide with the launch of the latest versions of the macOS – in fact, Parallels Desktop 19 was actually released in August 2023, about a month before macOS Sonoma arrived. However, the rapid development of Apple’s M-series of processors means that the Mac platform is developing all the time, so Parallels has released a number of smaller updates in recent months as well, helping to maintain its lead over most of its rivals.

Not only is Parallels Desktop compatible with Sonoma, Ventura, and other versions of macOS (as long as they are compatible with your Mac) it is also compatible with Windows 10 and 11 when creating virtual machines (sadly, older versions of Windows are no longer supported).

This is great news for Mac users who still own older, Intel-powered Mac models, but the situation is a little more complicated for newer Apple Silicon Macs with ARM-based  M1, M2 or M3 chips. Microsoft isn’t exactly helpful here, as it doesn’t normally sell the current Windows 11 On Arm direct to ordinary members of the public. However, in 2022, Parallels Desktop 18 introduced the ability to download and buy the ARM version of Windows 11 directly within Parallels itself. And, more recently, Parallels has been officially endorsed by Microsoft as an “authorized solution” for purchasing and running Windows 11 on Macs – something that rivals such as VMware Fusion don’t currently offer.

Parallels also states that Windows 11 On ARM allows you to run most older software and apps that were originally written for the Intel version of Windows, so you shouldn’t have any compatibility problems when running a virtual machine using Windows On ARM VMs on your M-series Mac.

Version 18 of Parallels Desktop included the ability for high-end Macs, such as the Mac Studio with its Max and Ultra chips, to boost performance by configuring your virtual machines to use up to 62GB of memory and 18 CPU cores, so you can get really strong performance for graphics and design work – and, of course, for gaming too. There are some limitations, though. Unfortunately, Parallels doesn’t allow you to specify the number of GPU cores used by your virtual machines – this is directly controlled by the macOS itself.

Parallels Desktop is currently also limited to using DirectX 11, rather than the latest DirectX 12, which means that some games and graphics software that use DirectX 12 won’t run properly. However, Parallels Desktop 19 did provide improved support for some important graphics software and tools that use OpenGL 4.1.

Parallels Desktop 19 provided a redesigned interface too, along with useful features such as the ability to use Touch ID in VMs running Windows. And, to show that it’s keeping up with Apple’s rapid pace of development, there have been some other updates in recent months as well. Version 19.2 improved Parallels’ ability to run VMs on external hard drives and SSDs, and speed up the process of cloning existing VMs for testing purposes or for distribution to multiple users within an organization.

In March 2024 the 19.3 update introduced some new security features, allowing users to control or restrict the way that the Copy/Paste command works between Mac apps and Windows apps. There are improved networking features for developers, and also more detailed options for configuring memory and processor settings for VMs that run the macOS.

For many years, VMware Fusion was in lock-step with Parallels Desktop, with the two rivals releasing regular updates and competing for the top spot in the Mac virtualization market. In recent years, though, VMware seems to have taken its foot off the pedal and has allowed Fusion to fall behind a bit (in fact, you actually have to dig around quite a bit simply to find Fusion on VMware website these days).

In July 2023 VMware did actually make a Fusion-related announcement though, releasing a tech preview of a forthcoming update to Fusion that should lead to performance improvements for Macs with Apple Silicon. When Fusion version 13 arrived in November 2022, it brought support for ARM virtualization on Apple’s M1 and M2-series chips. As is the case with Parallels Desktop, you can only run the Arm version of Windows on M-series Macs. Unfortunately, installing the Arm version of Windows via VMware isn’t as simple as it is with Parallels, VMware told us that it’s up to the user to buy a license from Microsoft (which is a challenge due to it not being available to individual users).

When Fusion 12 brought compatibility with Apple’s chips VMware’s Michael Roy says that Fusion 13 was just “our first round of features for Windows 11 On Arm”. The Fusion tech preview at least demonstrates that changes are coming. For example, the Fusion Tech Preview 2023 will bring “full 3D hardware accelerated graphics” to virtual machines running Windows On Arm on Macs with Apple Silicon. Support for Microsoft’s DirectX 11 graphics system is also coming. There are other features that are currently only available when running Fusion on older Macs with Intel processors, which will also be updated so that they run on Macs with Apple Silicon too. As yet there’s no release date for the next version of VMware Fusion.

Native support for ARM was the main feature of the Fusion 13 update alongside a TPM 2.0 virtual device, which is a requirement of Windows 11. Prior to version 13, Fusion 12 added support for 3D graphics using both DirectX 11 and OpenGL, giving Fusion users access to a wider range of Windows games, as well as many professional graphics and design applications. We were also pleased to see that Fusion 12 added support for eGPUs – external GPUs – that can be used to boost graphics performance in your VMs, leaving your Mac’s main GPU free to concentrate just on the macOS. eGPUs aren’t supported by M-series Macs though.

At the same time as launching Fusion 12, VMware also announced that it would release a free version of the program – called Fusion Player – for personal use only, for home users and students. Fusion 13 Player is free for personal use. You’ll need to register for a VMware account, but Fusion Player is free to download here. If you want a commercial license for Fusion 13 Player it’s $149/£127.49 (was £124.99) while Fusion 13 Pro is $199/£169.16 (was £166.66).

While Fusion hasn’t kept up to date with the latest developments in Mac hardware and software, the availability of the free Fusion Player still makes it a great option for home users and students who occasionally need to run Windows apps or games on their Intel Macs.

CrossOver is based on WINE (see below), and uses a similar compatibility layer to allow Windows apps to run on the Mac without requiring a full version of Windows to be installed as well (you need to buy a copy of Windows for use with virtualization programs such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion).

Although WINE is a free, open-source program, it’s complicated to use, so the team at Codeweavers developed CrossOver as a user-friendly alternative. They even provide technical support. CrossOver isn’t free – a copy of CrossOver with a year of support is $74, or you can pay $494 for lifetime support. There is a 14-day free trial available.

CrossOver allows you to install Windows apps into Bottles, which are self-contained files that can be launched and run on your Mac without requiring a full copy of Windows. You can create lots of different bottles for different apps, and bottles can even be configured to provide compatibility with different versions of Windows. This is useful as it allows you to create bottles that are suitable for older games and software that might require a particular version of Windows in order to run properly.

Even so, CrossOver can still be quite complicated at times, so version 22 introduced a more Mac-like interface and provides more help when installing Windows apps and games. For example, when you launch CrossOver you see the main Install window, which lists popular Windows apps and games, such as Grand Theft Auto V and the Quicken accounting software for business users. There’s also a search tool that provides information on hundreds of other Windows apps, and an indication of how well they run with CrossOver. Some apps run well, others may run with problems, and some don’t work with CrossOver at all. But we were able to install and run a 20-year old copy of Microsoft Publisher from an old DVD with no trouble at all, and old favorite Icewind Dale II ran.

At the moment, CrossOver is based on code written for Intel processors, so it relies on Apple’s Rosetta to run on Macs with Apple Silicon, but we found that performance was pretty good regardless. Codeweavers says that it is working on native support for Apple Silicon.

Codeweavers’ focus tends to be on popular Windows games. The Game Porting Kit that Apple released last year to help game developers produce Mac versions of their games is based on open-source code from Codeweavers. CrossOver receives regular updates to improve support for individual Windows games. Version 22.1 fixed problems that were affecting games such as BioShock Infinite and Grand Theft Auto V, and version 23.0 introduced limited support for games, such as Diablo IV, that use Microsoft’s DirectX 12 graphics software (something that even Parallels Desktop is still working on). Diablo IV got a further performance boost with version 23.7, along with Counter Strike 2 and a number of other games, while the recently released version 24.0 provided compatibility with the latest version of WINE and included interface improvements.

The Codeweavers team puts a lot of effort into regular updates for CrossOver and the tech support is impressive. Even so, CrossOver can still be a little daunting at times, so it’s worth downloading the trial version to see how well it works with your favorite Windows games and other Windows software.

Windows 365 (which launched in July 2021) has the potential to really challenge traditional virtualization programs such as Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion. However, at the moment, Windows 365 is still pretty expensive and is very much aimed at large corporate users, rather than the individuals and smaller businesses that tend to use Parallels and Fusion.

Microsoft describes Windows 365 as a Cloud PC, but its technical notes make it clear that Windows 365 is a form of virtual machine. The difference is that Parallels and Fusion create virtual machines that are stored locally on your Mac itself, and these virtual machines rely on your Mac’s own processor power, memory and storage to run Windows and Windows apps.

In contrast, Windows 365 creates a virtual machine that is stored up in the cloud, and runs on Microsoft’s own servers. The video image for the Windows desktop on your cloud PC is then streamed to your Mac – or any other device, such as an iPad or even another Windows PC – via your broadband connection.

This form of virtual machine can work well, as long as you have a fast enough – and always-on – Internet connection. But, as mentioned, Windows 365 is quite expensive, with prices ranging from $31/£26.40 to $66/£56.20 per month. That’s compared to $99.99/£89.99 for a full year for the home user version of Parallels Desktop, while Fusion even has a completely free version for home users and students.

Windows 365 certainly has appeal to larger businesses that want to provide a standardized cloud PC that their staff can connect to from any location that has an Internet connection – it’s ideal for hybrid working and the ‘new normal’. However, it’s too expensive for ordinary home users, students and smaller businesses, so existing users of Parallels and Fusion will probably want to stick with those apps for the time being.

Read more here: How to use Windows 365 on Mac, iPad and iPhone.

Using dual-boot rather than virtualization technology, Boot Camp provides the best performance for Intel-based Macs that need to run Windows. (As we explained above, M1/M2-based Macs do not offer Boot Camp).

It’s important to make a distinction between Boot Camp and the virtualization programs that we look at here, such as Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion and VirtualBox. Instead of creating a virtual machine that allows you to run Mac and Windows apps together at the same time, Boot Camp is a dual-boot system that simply allows you to boot (start) your Mac using either the native macOS or Windows (but not both at the same time).

Thanks to Boot Camp your Mac can act as a straightforward Windows PC, and devote all its processor power and memory to running Windows and your Windows apps. And, crucially, if your Mac has a decent graphics card, it can use the full power of the graphics card to help run your Windows software. That’s definitely the best option for people who need to run high-end graphics software or 3D games, as you get much better performance than when running Windows in a virtual machine.

The disadvantage of using Boot Camp is that you lose access to all your Mac apps while you’re running Windows. If you use Apple Mail for your emails then you’ll need to shut down Windows and Boot Camp, and switch back to macOS every time you want to send or receive an email. And, if truth be told, the current version of BootCamp 6.1 isn’t quite as straightforward to set up as it used to be.

Previous versions of Boot Camp did all the work for you – they would partition your hard drive, install Windows from a normal installer disk, and also install any driver software that you needed so that components such as your graphics card, keyboard and mouse all worked properly within Windows.

Boot Camp 6.1.19 (as of August 2022) can now only be used to install Windows 7, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10. Windows 11 requires the host computer to have a TPM (trusted platform module) which Macs don’t have (some VM solutions, such as Parallels, can allow Macs with a T2 chip to run Windows 11). Since not all Macs will work with all versions of Windows, so before you even start to run the Boot Camp Assistant you’ll need to check the compatibility tables on Apple’s website to see which version of Windows will work on your Mac.

You can’t install Windows from an old installer disk anymore either, so you’ll either have to download a disk image file for Windows – called an ISO file – from Microsoft’s own website, or use your Windows disk to create one. Boot Camp includes driver software for setting up Windows 8 and Windows 10, but if you’re a fan of Windows 7 (which some people prefer for gaming) then you’ll have to hunt around on Apple’s website for the drivers you need and make sure you follow the correct procedure when copying them on to your Boot Camp partition.

Still, if you persevere with all that, you will eventually have Windows running at full speed on your Mac, giving you access to a wide range of Windows software and games that require more power and speed than you can get from using virtual machine technology. Just as long as you don’t have an M1 Mac…

As we mentioned above, the third technology option – after Boot Camp and virtualization – is Wine, which allows you to run Windows apps without Windows itself.

Version 8 of Wine arrived at the end of January 2023, like version 7.5 of Wine, which arrived in March 2022, Wine still runs on M1 and M2 Macs via Rosetta 2. Wine 8 includes support for the latest versions of the Vulkan graphics engine and Microsoft Direct3D. It also adds support for the OCSP networking protocol.

If you don’t mind rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands a bit dirty, then Wine is an unusual but feasible option for running Windows software on your Mac.

Like VirtualBox, Wine is an open-source program that you can download for free. However, it doesn’t use conventional virtualization technology to create a virtual machine for installing Windows – in fact, Wine is the only program in this group that doesn’t even require a copy of Windows at all.

Instead, Wine acts as a kind of software middleman that translates the programming routines – called APIs – in Windows apps so that they can talk directly to macOS, without needing a full copy of Windows itself. And as you don’t need a lot of extra memory or processor power in order to run Windows, you may find that Wine can actually provide better performance than using a virtual machine (especially for games and graphics apps).

Wine also gets very regular updates from a team of dedicated developers who provide the software for free.

The downside is that Wine can be spectacularly confusing for beginners – to the point where we can only really recommend it to hobbyists who like a bit of a challenge.

CodeWeavers CrossOver for Mac is a little easier to use than Wine, despite being closely related to the software. But of course Wine is free, which is a big bonus.

This open-source virtualization program is free for personal use – but more at home in a corporate environment.

VirtualBox, in version 7.0.6 since January 2023, is a bit of a mixed bag. Like Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, it allows you to create a virtual machine that can run Windows and Windows apps from within macOS itself.

If you want it for personal or educational use then VirtualBox is free – it’s actually been made available as an open-source program by Oracle (Oracle also makes Wine available as an open-source program). You might think of Oracle as a big database company, but they basically own the core code for these solutions.

There are Linux and Windows versions of VirtualBox too, which allows you to use your virtual machines on many different types of computers (although you’ll still need to pay for your own Windows license to get started).

The disadvantage of open-source software is that VirtualBox isn’t as polished or easy to use as Parallels or Fusion. To be fair, the version 6.0 update tidied up its interface to make the initial setup of your virtual machines a little easier. It has also improved its support for audio and 3D graphics in Windows games and apps.

VirtualBox is now in version 7. It doesn’t yet support M1 or M2 Macs – unlike Parallels and VMware, Oracle has made no commitment as yet to getting the software running on an M-series Mac. But this version of VirtualBox does offer support for Windows 11, macOS Big Sur and Monterey – there isn’t support for macOS Ventura yet though, which appears to be due to changes Apple made to kernal extensions.

VirtualBox throws a lot of jargon at you and if you don’t know the difference between a virtual hard disk and a virtual machine disk then you might find it a bit tricky to get started.

And, as the program is free, you don’t get any technical support – although there is a busy user forum where you can ask a few questions when you need to.

To be honest, Oracle is really aiming VirtualBox at large corporations that have a proper IT department to help them out. However, business users do need to pay £40/$50 for the VirtualBox Enterprise edition, and you may need to commit to buying 100 licenses at a time, which pretty much rules it out for all but the largest businesses, or educational users who are prepared to tackle the free version.