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 out in August, more than a month before macOS Sonoma was due to arrive.

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 11. This is great news for those Mac users with Intel-powered machines, but what of the M-series Macs which can only run the ARM version of Windows? In 2022 Parallels Desktop 18 solved issues related to running the ARM version of Windows on Macs. Previously this was challenging because that version of Windows isn’t normally licensed to individual users. Since the arrival of version 18 Parallels has included the ability to download and buy the ARM version of Windows 11 directly within Parallels itself. Parallels has even been endorsed by Microsoft for running the ARM version of Windows on M1 and M2 Macs, so everything is legit and above board.

Parallels claims that Windows On ARM also 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 Windows On ARM VMs on your M-series Mac.

Other improvements that arrived with version 18 included the ability, on high-end Macs, such as the Mac Studio with its M1 Max and Ultra chips, to configure your virtual machines to use up to 62GB of memory and 18 CPU cores, in order to provide improved performance. Unfortunately, Parallels doesn’t allow you to also specify the number of GPU cores used by your virtual machines because, it says, the multiple GPU cores on the M1 and M2 chips are controlled solely by macOS. 

The new features in version 19 of Parallels Desktop aren’t quite as groundbreaking as the availability of Windows on Arm was in the prior update. But there’s a redesign and a new icon, as well as under-the-bonnet features, such Touch ID support in Windows, which will keep people happy.

Unfortunately, back in 2022 the price of Parallels Desktop increased for the first time in quite a few years. The standard version for home users and students now costs $99.99/£89.99 per year, while the Pro Edition costs $119.99/£99.99, and the Business edition is $149.99/£119.99.

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.

Read our full VMware Fusion for Mac review

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.

CrossOver is based on WINE (see below), and uses a similar compatibility layer to allow Windows apps to run on the Mac without actually requiring a full version of Windows to be installed as well. But although WINE is a free, open-source program, it’s too complicated for most non-technical users, so the team at Codeweavers developed CrossOver as an alternative, and they also provide technical support to help with installing a wide variety of Windows games and software.

However, that technical support means that CrossOver isn’t free, costing $64 for a copy of CrossOver with 12 months of support, or you can pay $494 for lifetime support. There’s also a 14-day free trial available, so you can check it out and see if it works with the Windows software that you need to run before buying.

CrossOver has always aimed to be more user-friendly than WINE, by allowing you to install Windows apps into ‘bottles’ – self-contained files that can be launched and run on your Mac without requiring a full copy of Windows. Even so, CrossOver could still be pretty confusing, so the most important change with the v22.0 update is that it finally has a more Mac-like user interface, and provides more help with installing many Windows apps.

When you launch CrossOver (the latest version as of August 2022 is Crossover 22) you see the main Install window, which lists some popular Windows apps, such as Microsoft Office 2010 and Grand Theft Auto V. 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. But, as we discovered, there are degrees of compatibility here, with some apps that run well, while others may run with problems – and some may simply not work with CrossOver at all.

You can create lots of different bottles for different apps, and these are listed in a sidebar on the left-hand side of the CrossOver window for easy access. It’s even possible – according to Codeweavers – to create a bottle for the Steam game store, and then use that to download Windows games that you own on Steam. However, we still found CrossOver to be rather temperamental at times. Somewhat to my surprise, I was able to install and run a 20-year old copy of Microsoft Publisher from an old DVD, and also Icewind Dale II, an old favourite game that doesn’t seem to be widely available these days.

Initially, I had some issues running Steam properly using CrossOver, so my collection of Windows games on Steam was tantalizingly out of reach for a while. However, Codeweavers eventually provided a fix for this issue. This is where the technical support–which you pay for when you buy CrossOver–comes in handy. You still have the option of trying it for free before deciding whether to buy the full version of CrossOver, or perhaps opt for a more conventional virtualization tool such as Parallels Desktop.

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.