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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Infrastructure as a Service
  4. Virtualization Platform
  5. Parallels Desktop vs VMware vSphere

Parallels Desktop vs VMware vSphere

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
Stacks608
Followers550
Votes30
Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop
Stacks39
Followers76
Votes2

Parallels Desktop vs VMware vSphere: What are the differences?

Developers describe Parallels Desktop as "Run Windows on Mac". Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence. On the other hand, VMware vSphere is detailed as "Free bare-metal hypervisor that virtualizes servers so you can consolidate your applications on less hardware". vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

Parallels Desktop and VMware vSphere belong to "Virtualization Platform" category of the tech stack.

Some of the features offered by Parallels Desktop are:

  • Seamless
  • Easy Setup
  • Lightning Fast

On the other hand, VMware vSphere provides the following key features:

  • Powerful Server Virtualization
  • Network Services
  • Efficient Storage

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Detailed Comparison

VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop

vSphere is the world’s leading server virtualization platform. Run fewer servers and reduce capital and operating costs using VMware vSphere to build a cloud computing infrastructure.

Parallels Desktop for Mac allows you to seamlessly run both Windows and MacOS applications side-by-side with speed, control and confidence.

Powerful Server Virtualization;Network Services;Efficient Storage;Consistent Automation;High Availability;Robust Security
Seamless;Easy Setup;Lightning Fast;Coherence mode;Retina Display Support;Touch Bar;Office 365 Integration;Automatic resolution change;Drag and drop;Picture-in-Picture;macOS guest support
Statistics
Stacks
608
Stacks
39
Followers
550
Followers
76
Votes
30
Votes
2
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 8
    Strong host isolation
  • 6
    Industry leader
  • 5
    Great VM management (HA,FT,...)
  • 4
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Great Networking
Cons
  • 9
    Price
Pros
  • 1
    Retina support
  • 1
    Works out of the box with zero config
Integrations
No integrations available
Vagrant
Vagrant
Chef
Chef
Docker
Docker

What are some alternatives to VMware vSphere, Parallels Desktop?

VirtualBox

VirtualBox

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 performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.

Proxmox VE

Proxmox VE

It is a complete open-source platform for all-inclusive enterprise virtualization that tightly integrates KVM hypervisor and LXC containers, software-defined storage and networking functionality on a single platform, and easily manages high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools with the built-in web management interface.

KVM

KVM

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V).

Qemu

Qemu

When used as a machine emulator, it can run OSes and programs made for one machine (e.g. an ARM board) on a different machine (e.g. your own PC). By using dynamic translation, it achieves very good performance. When used as a virtualizer, it achieves near native performance by executing the guest code directly on the host CPU. it supports virtualization when executing under the Xen hypervisor or using the KVM kernel module in Linux. When using KVM, it can virtualize x86, server and embedded PowerPC, 64-bit POWER, S390, 32-bit and 64-bit ARM, and MIPS guests.

Parallels

Parallels

It is an application and desktop virtualization software vendor that offers management and delivery platforms for Apple macOS and Microsoft Windows desktop deployments.

VMware Fusion

VMware Fusion

It gives Mac users the power to run Windows on Mac along with hundreds of other operating systems side by side with Mac applications, without rebooting. It is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses.

Xen

Xen

It is a hypervisor using a microkernel design, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was developed by the Linux Foundation and is supported by Intel.

VMware vSAN

VMware vSAN

It is enterprise-class, storage virtualization software that, when combined with vSphere, allows you to manage compute and storage with a single platform. You can reduce the cost and complexity of traditional storage and take the easiest path to hyperconverged infrastructure and hybrid cloud. Evolve to an integrated hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) solution with vSAN to improve business agility, all while speeding operations and lowering costs.

Oracle VM Server

Oracle VM Server

It is a zero license cost server virtualization and management solution that makes enterprise applications easier to deploy, manage, and support. Backed worldwide by affordable enterprise-quality support for both Oracle and non-Oracle environments, it reduces operations and support costs while increasing IT efficiency and agility.

Virtuozzo

Virtuozzo

It is an operating system-level server virtualization solution designed to centralize server management and consolidate workloads, which reduces overhead by reducing the number of physical servers required. Organizations use it for server consolidation, disaster recovery, and server workload agility.

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