Parallels Desktop vs VMware Fusion: Running Windows on an Apple Silicon Mac

Apple Silicon changed the rules for running Windows on a Mac, and most guides out there are still describing the Intel playbook. The short version: Parallels and VMware Fusion both run Windows 11 ARM on M-series Macs, but they are no longer peers. Parallels is the paid, polished option. Fusion is the free one that Broadcom now gives away for personal use, and it has quietly become good enough for a lot of people who would have bought Parallels two years ago.

I keep both installed on an M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. Here is what actually matters when you pick between them.

Why this comparison is different from the Intel era

On a 2018 Intel Mac, Fusion and Parallels were close enough that price decided it. On Apple Silicon, neither tool emulates x86 by default. They run Windows 11 ARM in a virtual machine that talks to the Apple chips natively, which means Windows is genuinely fast. The catch is that x86 Windows apps have to go through Windows’ own ARM translation layer, so anything with a kernel driver (old VPN clients, some anti-cheat, certain USB dongle software) may refuse to launch. That limitation applies to both products equally. It is not a reason to pick one over the other, and any review that frames it as a Parallels problem is wrong.

Parallels Desktop: the one you pay for

Parallels Desktop 20 for Mac is the current release. Pricing has moved around over the years, but the structure is stable: a standard edition for home users, a Pro edition for developers and IT, and a Business edition with volume licensing. Student pricing exists but requires verification. Every edition is a subscription now unless you buy a perpetual license, and Parallels pushes you toward the yearly plan during checkout.

The install is the smoothest part. You download a roughly 300MB installer, click through, and Parallels offers to fetch and install Windows 11 ARM for you with an ISO or a licence key. If you have no key, it can still set up a trial. Ten minutes after double-clicking the DMG, you have a working Windows desktop. Coherence mode blends individual Windows apps into the macOS Dock so they look like native apps. Shared folders, copy and paste between systems, and drag-and-drop of files across the boundary are on by default and behave. I moved a 4GB folder between macOS and Windows by dragging it once and it just worked.

Where Parallels earns the money is polish. Snapshotting before a risky install is a two-click affair. USB device passthrough is predictable. The Apple Silicon GPU path is well tuned, so light games and CAD viewers running in Windows feel responsive rather than slideshow-slow. Battery life on my Air with a Windows VM idle dropped by maybe 15 percent compared to native macOS, which is reasonable.

What annoys me about Parallels

• The subscription. If you stop paying, the VM stops opening eventually, even though you already own the Windows licence inside it.
• Upsells during setup for Parallels Toolbox, a separate bundle of small utilities that has nothing to do with virtualisation.
• RAM defaults. On a 16GB Mac, telling Parallels to hand Windows more than 8GB starves macOS and everything gets sluggish. The defaults are sensible, but the Pro edition will happily let you build a config that hurts.

VMware Fusion: free, and no longer the weak sibling

Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023 and in 2024 made Fusion Pro free for personal use. That is the headline. Commercial use still requires a paid licence, and the licensing flow now runs through Broadcom’s portal, which is widely reported to be slower and more bureaucratic than the old VMware store. If you are an individual running Windows for personal projects, Fusion costs nothing.

The technical side is closer to Parallels than the price gap suggests. Fusion Player and Fusion Pro both run Windows 11 ARM VMs on Apple Silicon, with the same ARM translation caveat for x86 apps. Unity mode mirrors Parallels’ Coherence, hiding the Windows desktop and surfacing individual apps on the Mac. Snapshots, virtual networking, and shared folders all exist. Performance in my day-to-day use (Office, a browser, a couple of small utilities) is indistinguishable from Parallels. Long-running compiles and storage-heavy tasks favoured Parallels slightly in repeatable tests, but the gap is small enough that most users will not notice.

Where Fusion falls down

• Setup is clunkier. Windows 11 ARM installation is not as wizard-driven as Parallels, and you may need to source an ISO and a product key yourself.
• Licensing documentation is buried. Finding whether your use counts as personal or commercial is harder than it should be.
• Support has been thinner since the Broadcom transition. Community forums are still good, official support less so.

Feature table, short version

• Price: Parallels from around the price of a cheap yearly subscription, Fusion free for personal use.
• Setup ease: Parallels wins clearly.
• Performance on Apple Silicon: close, Parallels slightly ahead in sustained load.
• Native macOS integration (Coherence / Unity): both have it, Parallels is smoother.
• Snapshots and rollback: both fine.
• Commercial licensing: Parallels straightforward, Fusion requires a Broadcom licence.
• Support quality: Parallels paid support is responsive; Fusion leans on community.

Which one should you actually install?

If you are an individual running Windows for a specific app or two and you have no need for commercial licensing, install Fusion first. It is free, it works, and the money you save can go towards a Windows licence, which Microsoft sells around $200 for a full retail copy according to standard pricing. That is the bigger line item anyway, as noted in comparisons of paid versus free software.

If you are a developer, a designer using Windows-only CAD, or anyone who runs Windows eight hours a day and wants the friction to disappear, pay for Parallels. The setup wizard, better GPU handling under load, and the calmer support experience are worth the annual fee for someone whose livelihood depends on the VM behaving.

Skip both if your only Windows need is Microsoft Office. LibreOffice and Google Docs open and write Office files without complaint, and if you mostly live in a browser, Linux Mint looks and behaves like Windows enough that many users settle in within a day. Forks in formatting in complex Word files and a lack of most games are the trade-offs. That said, if you specifically need Windows and have no Intel machine lying around, Fusion or Parallels on Apple Silicon is the honest answer. Just budget for the RAM. 8GB on the Mac is not enough for a comfortable Windows 11 VM. 16GB is the floor I would recommend, and 24GB or more makes the whole thing painless.