Best Hypervisors for Mac

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. See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction. Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6, 3.x and 4.x), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD. VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company.

Build virtualization solutions on top of a lightweight hypervisor, without third-party kernel extensions. Hypervisor provides C APIs so you can interact with virtualization technologies in user space, without writing kernel extensions (KEXTs). As a result, the apps you create using this framework are suitable for distribution on the Mac App Store. Use this framework to create and control hardware-facilitated virtual machines and virtual processors (VMs and vCPUs) from your entitled, sandboxed, user-space process. Hypervisor abstracts virtual machines as processes, and virtual processors as threads. The Hypervisor framework requires hardware support to virtualize hardware resources. On Apple silicon, that includes the Virtualization Extensions. On Intel-based Mac computers, the framework supports machines with an Intel VT-x feature set that includes Extended Page Tables (EPT) and Unrestricted Mode.

Whether you need to run Windows programs that don’t have Mac versions, or you are making the switch from PC to Mac and need to transfer your data, Parallels Desktop has you covered. Develop & test across multiple OSes in a virtual machine for Mac. Access Microsoft Office for Windows and Internet Explorer. Fast—run Windows apps without slowing down your Mac. Quickly move files, apps and more from a PC to a Mac. Use Windows side-by-side with macOS (no restarting required) on your MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, Mac mini or Mac Pro. Share files and folders, copy and paste images and text & drag and drop files between Mac and Windows applications. Parallels Desktop automatically detects what you need to get started so you are up and going within minutes! If you need Windows, you’ll be prompted to Download and Install Windows 10 OR Choose your existing Windows, Linux, Ubuntu, or Boot Camp installation.

QEMU is a generic and open-source machine emulator and virtualizer. Run operating systems for any machine, on any supported architecture. Run programs for another Linux/BSD target, on any supported architecture. Run KVM and Xen virtual machines with near-native performance. Guest memory dumps are now fully supported, along with pre-copy/post-copy migration and background guest snapshots. Support for nw DEVICE_UNPLUG_GUEST_ERROR to detect guest-reported hotplug failures. macOS hosts with Apple Silicon CPUs now support ‘hvf’ accelerator for AArch64 guests. M-profile MVE extension is now supported for Cortex-M55. AMD SEV guests now support measurement of kernel binary when doing direct kernel boot (not using a bootloader). Support for vhost-user and numa mem options across all boards.

Discover a robust, bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto your physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi effectively partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs. It’s the industry leader for efficient architecture, setting the standard for reliability, performance, and support. IT teams are under constant pressure to meet fluctuating market trends and heightened customer demands. At the same time, they must stretch IT resources to accommodate increasingly complex projects. Fortunately, ESXi helps balance the need for both better business outcomes and IT savings.

VMware Fusion 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. Fusion is simple enough for home users and powerful enough for IT professionals, developers and businesses. Running Windows on Mac is only the beginning. VMware Fusion lets you choose from hundreds of supported operating systems, from lesser-known Linux distributions to the latest Windows 10 release, to run side by side with the latest macOS release. Fusion makes it simple to test nearly any OS and app on a Mac. Build and test apps in a sandbox while securely sharing local source files and folders. Fusion Pro now includes a RESTful API to integrate with modern development tools like Docker, Vagrant, Ansible, Chef, and others to fit the power of VMware into today’s Agile and DevOps-oriented production pipelines.

Lots of people talk about open source. Talk is cheap. We code. Run your Windows® app on MacOS, Linux, or ChromeOS. CrossOver Mac® Do you like buying Windows® licenses? You do? Great. You do you. For the rest of humanity, CrossOver is the easiest way to run many Microsoft applications on your Mac without a clunky Windows emulator. (Seriously, have you tried emulators? Do you like how they run on your Mac?) CrossOver works differently. It's not an emulator. It does the work of translating Windows commands into Mac commands so that you can run Windows software as if it were designed native to Mac. CrossOver works with all kinds of software - productivity software, utility programs, and games - all with one application. CrossOver Linux® You are the noble of the noblest running Linux. You don't want the despair of running a Windows OS on your finely minted machine. You don't want to sell your soul for a Windows license or squander away your hard drive shekels running a virtual machine