VMware Fusion is free in 2025 →
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Faced with another yearly $99 renewal for Parallels, I wanted to take a look around and see if there are any other options for Windows virtualization on Macs. Parallels is an amazing piece of software, and the Coherence mode feature is incredible.
But... I never use that feature. Or most Parallels features. All I want to do is run some Windows only Japanese games on my Mac. I don't even need an internet connection.
I'm glad I looked this up though because there's been a big change since I last investigated the Mac virtualization options with VMware Fusion.
VMware the company got acquired in 2023, and then next year Novemeber 2024 announced that VMware Fusion would become free to use. Until that point it was a paid competitor to Parallels. Now, either they couldn't be bothered charging customers(?) or the rest of the acquisition was going so badly they wanted to get some brownie points with the power users.
Whatever the case is, I thought I'd check it out, and I'm pleased to report it runs Windows! The only issue that affects my use case is saving and restoring the virtual machine state takes like 5-10 seconds or so, when Parallels was instant. Other than that I just saved myself $99 a year until Broadcom turns the money switch back on again. My games have plenty enough performce for me. I should note that I'm running ARM Windows 11, so my games are using the ARM Windows x86 emulator. Amazingly, it's going down 2 layers of emulation and yet my performance is completely fine with my M3 Macbook Air.
To download VMware Fusion you'll need to create a Broadcom account, and navigate the truly awful user experience of their website to find the link to the download page. Fortunately for you I've already done that: VMware Fusion download page