Difference Between VirtualBox and VMware and Parallels

What is the difference between VirtualBox and VMware and Parallels?

Although VirtualBox, VMware and Parallels are popular virtualization software, they have a lot of differences between them.

– They all support Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Linux and Mac OS X as the host operating systems. But, VirtualBox is the only software that supports Windows 7, Windows 2008 Server, Solaris 10U5+, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD (in the near future) as the host operating systems.

– All three software support DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Linux as the guest operating system. But again, VirtualBox is the only software that can load Windows 7, Windows Server 2003/2008, OpenBSD and OpenSolaris. VMware does not support OS/2, while Parallels does not support FreeBSD and Solaris as the guest operating system.

– Although, all three support 64-bit versions of guest operating systems, only VirtualBox and VMware support 64-bit host operating systems.

– Both VirtualBox and Parallels support Intel VT-x and AMD-V virtualization extensions, but this support is limited on VMware.

– VirtualBox, VMware and Parallels provide virtual network cards up to 8, 4 and 5, respectively.

– Both VirtualBox and VMware can support IDE or SATA virtual disk controllers, but Parallels will support only IDE. However, VirtualBox is the only software that supports iSCSI (which allows virtual machines to directly access storage servers over iSCSI).

– Although all there software provides Serial ports, only Parallels and VMware provide Parallel ports.

– Only VirtualBox supports CD/DVD writing.

– Furthermore, VirtualBox is the only virtualization software with unrestricted 3D acceleration. In fact, Parallels does not have any 3D acceleration capabilities.

– Out of VirtualBox and Parallels, only VirtualBox supports VMware images.

– Unlike VirtualBox and VMware, Parallels does not support Headless operation.

– VirtualBox is the virtualization software with unrestricted remote virtual machine access (with Integrated RDP server). In fact, Parallels does not have any remote access capabilities. Similarly, only VirtualBox supports remote USB access.

– Only VirtualBox and VMware provide reports on guest power status.

– Only, VirtualBox and VMware come with an API. But only VirtualBox is open source (with few closed source enterprise features).

– Unlike with Parallels and VMware, customizations are possible (upon request) with VirtualBox.

– Finally, VirtualBox is the only free virtualization software out of the three. However, Parallels is considerably cheaper than VMware.

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