Virtual host favorites

[Gator]

I thought it would be nice to open a discussion on your Virtual software of choice.

Vmware Fusion Mac is my Virtual client of choice. I run it on my MacBook Core2Duo 2ghz & 4GB DDR3, and the performance just rocks. Win2003 is smooth as butter, Ubuntu installed in record time and runs great, even Win7RC x64 installed without issue and is relatively fast. Fusion is customizable, intelligent in detecting OS installs and recommending settings, the tools disc image works great even on Linux, Unity is a neat feature, and basically it's just fast.

Prior to Fusion I setup an AMD X2 4000, 4GB DDR2, Win2003 32bit, and I tried both Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Hosting a virtual Vista was like pulling hair it was so slow setting up, Ubuntu was craptastic to get working properly, and overall the interface was lackluster and clumsy.

I have not had the pleasure of trying HyperV yet, but I've read up on it and it appears they added many needed features that VMWare already had. I plan to try HyperV soon, but I'm going to run it again Vmware ESXi and I'm taking bets on which will be smoother.

I have not tried Parallels yet, but I hear it's excellent.

[caveman-jim]

I tried out Parallels and MS Virtual Server a couple of years ago, found them lacking. VMware was the best choice for me. Now I run VMware Workstation, Server, ESXi and ESX. And I'm a VCP.

Hyper-V seems to be lacking some critical features and performance sets. Parallels is great for Web server hosting, and for Windows on MAC, but I prefer Fusion for MAC's.

I have not played with Virtualbox, KVM or XEN enough to really compare them, but they each appear to have paper weaknesses that make me stick with VMware.

[theevilsharpie]

Now I run VMware Workstation, Server, ESXi and ESX. And I'm a VCP.

There's no contest. VMware outclasses everyone in the x86 virtualization world, in nearly every metric. The only time I would ever use anything else is if my hardware wasn't supported by ESX/ESXi.