Parallels or VMWare?

I'm going into my second year of college (Applied Electronics and Computer Technology) and I'm going to be using Windows/Linux much more than my previous year. I've been using bootcamp and it's worked out alright but I'd much rather run Windows/Linux in a virtual machine. I've used Virtualbox a lot and it's a great program but it doesn't run nearly as smooth as I'd like it too. I'll be running anything from XP to Windows 7 along with flavors of Linux ranging from Ubuntu to Slackware. Both programs are $40 but I'm not sure which one to get. =\

I prefer and use VMWare Fusion. I find it to be a much more polished application than Parallels, probably because VMWare been at it far longer than Parallels. Also, Fusion has better support and forums. All just my opinion of course.

moved

You can get trial versions of Parallels and VMWare Fusion and of course VirtualBox for free..so you can try all three out and see which ones works the best for you and buy the one that you like the most..

In my case, I use VirtualBox and Linux to do work-related stuff and I find that it works great..I had to upgrade my system memory from 4GB to 12GB so that I could give the VM 4GB of memory and that made the VM behave nicely and more importantly my host OS X now has no issues at all..

I asked this same question about 6 months ago. After some research and opinions here I went with VMWare. Been happy with it to date although I don't boot into Windows that often.

For a single user VM on windows they are comparable and the differences are mostly of preference and UI. But if you are going to run other OSs VMWare has far superior tools for the Linux world including a huge library of downloadable appliances and preconfigured VMs. plus very knowledgeable forum support as noted above.

cheers

I have both, but prefer Parallels.

I need to use Windows only software, but not always on a daily basis.

I would recommend as much RAM as your budget and machine permits for either Fusion or Parallels. My MBP (2011) with 8Gb of RAM and 750Gb (7200 rpm) hard drive means Parallels runs much better than on my Macbook of 2008 vintage.

I have both as well, and I prefer VMWare. It runs quicker for me and it works seamlessly with the host system, Parallels is not quite as smooth with the interaction of the guest system.

Just my 2 cents.

I have both, and they are both great products. I use Parallels more these days simply because of Coherence mode. I love the way that works. Like pointed about above though, VMWare rocks with the preconfigured environments and their tools. I don't boot to Windows often anyway, so I am by no means a power user of either.

Try them all out and see what fits.

Def VMWare. I've used them all, Parallels and Virtualbox. VmWare has less bugs and works more seamless. Max out your ram, and you will be good to go. I have Windows 7 and linux on my virtual machines and they run excellently on my 2010 13in MBP.

I am a computer science student as well and just compiled my first assembly language instruction in windows a few days ago. Easiest solution was to use a virtual environment.